


maybe down in lonesome town

by resurrectdead



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Banter, Comfort No Hurt, Cottagecore, Cows, English Countryside, Eventual Smut, Famous and Non-Famous, Forest Sex, Horseback Riding, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nature, Non-Famous Louis Tomlinson, Rich Harry, Sad and Sweet, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Summer Romance, Tenderness, Writer Harry, canon compliant evil management ;), depictions of panic disorder, mentions of cheating, naturecore, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:54:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28895448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resurrectdead/pseuds/resurrectdead
Summary: He doesn’t say, this is a good reason why he couldn’t bear to stay. Couldn’t be in the same house haunted by old ghosts of bittersweet memories.And he doesn’t say, I’m leaving in the autumn again. In November, I’ll have to leave you in the cold. I’ll be gone like the summer.or: Harry is a struggling author that moves to the Yorkshire countryside over the summer to escape the same city routine. He doesn't expect to meet a lovely farmer that makes future decisions very hard to make.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 17
Kudos: 94





	1. go your own way

**Author's Note:**

> this was wholeheartedly inspired by the tumblr dot com tag: cottagecore
> 
> the title for this is from lonesome town by ricky nelson AND if you like playlists, [here is one!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3BEBhtrQP3HctCOhK2DiA6)

”Ready, girl?”

Willow huffs a breath, and Harry pats the horse down her side, warm under his palm. He sits back up in the saddle to maybe start thinking about his own breathing (which is probably currently unhealthily uneven, thank you kindly for asking) and adjusts the blue headscarf keeping his hair in check. 

It’s cute. So sue him.

The landscape is widespread in front of them, a sheer layer of white fog wrapping the ground up to sleep for another few hours of the early morning. Only crickets are awake this time of dawn, and he hears their song, dozens of them together with a few stray birds fooled by the light that it would already be time to rise, fooled by the everlasting light of summertime. Song in joy of a new day, or in lamentation? He does not know. 

It’s like a painting or a scene from a movie, he thinks, breathing in the cool air that chills his lungs. The stacked grey stones in rows and rows working as fences, separating one field from another on the acres of land; the two single residences found along the dirt road below, the only ones there, only bracketed by power lines and wildly growing greenery, giving flowers, giving berries. The rolling hills, evergreen in the nearly deserted dale, mixed in with the wheat fields and their golden crops swaying serenely in the wind. Springs and rivers, pouring in a distance, clear and wintry cold. 

He sees cows far, far away; he’s so far up he even almost makes out the single shop that this countryside has got to offer, and further than that, cloud-shaped sheep in pastures grazing the grass. Silver birches are growing tall and green among them all, lush and healthy, and how they reach and reach for the pale morning sky; it’s a calm kind of blue that’s seeping in cerise, strokes of bright cerulean, up to the faint hints of clouds where they float, anticipating. 

His house, or his _temporary_ house, with its white facade and the black Passat parked alone in the driveway, is in clear view right down there in the middle of it all, almost completely alone in the quiet. The stone cottage with the old oak behind it, the little chimney ready to huff out smoke when the ground wraps up for sleep under a blanket of white crystals a few months from now. By then he’ll be gone. Or he thinks he will, at least; maybe wishes. 

He grips the red reins in his hands so tightly his knuckles turn a determined white. Breathes out. 

”Ready,” he answers himself. 

Then he kicks off, and suddenly there’s wind roaring in his ears, brown locks of hair whipping in his face despite his valiant attempts to keep it tamed. It’s two hearts that pound frantically as one when Harry soars back down the hill towards the large red stable on Willow’s strong back.

Dirt and soil flies in their wake when they gallop past, leaves angry crescent-shaped marks in the grass on the hillside, the track that’s so easily followed, like a river. Like it’s daring you to. The same path he rode down yesterday when the sun was setting and his boredom was itching and the saddle was just _right there_ ; the same path he’ll ride down tomorrow.

Clusters of birds burst off in fright when they thunder past, and Harry shuts his eyes for just a beat, imagines flying off with them. Imagines just leaving off on his own two wings, floating off, like leaving his prison, spirit leaving the body.

Like the tugging and longing in his chest and stomach melts away for just a moment, and he feels just the wind, feels just the pressure of it against his skin. He swears his heart is full with the feeling of the freedom of running free, only that, of the calm and the serenity and absolutely nothing else. 

But the feelings twist like a grimace. Because he knows he’s lying to himself. 

And then it hits him. 

Fuck. He _still_ can’t stop thinking about _him_. 

It’s three months earlier that Harry bunches the last of his moving boxes into the house he’s meant to be living in for the next six months.

It’s for work, really, for the peace and quiet that’s bound to make the creativity flow, the idyllic serenity of the Yorkshire countryside bound to clear your head enough to make your thoughts work properly again. (They’ve been like a bit of a broken record lately, if he’s honest, and not even in a sense of repeating themselves. Just, how a record is created to make beauty, to produce, to _give_ something. How it wears itself down, with love and adoration and then, it can work no longer. 

At least Harry has the privilege of starting over.)

His latest book went amazingly well. Was a brilliant addition to his series too; the next Stephen King, or J.K. Rowling, that’s what they’d called him, among other spectacular claims in the reviews he’d ritually skimmed through on his iPad while sipping his tea every morning for a good three months after the release. They’d made a movie of the first one, and he signed the deal to make this one come to life as well, as soon as the paper was presented to him, and his manager popped the champagne. 

He got complimented on social media, thanked in public. Random e-mails sent to his work account just wanting to let him know how happy they were to have found him, how his work resonated with them, even the ones that could go as far as how it had _saved their lives_ (he often questioned their credibility, but always wrote back his deepest thanks nonetheless because what the hell? He’d touched; that was incredible on its own). His mum cried on the phone to him for just about an hour with pride and love as soon as she got her copy delivered in the postbox. 

He was humbled. He really was. 

This did, however, bring on more anxiety rather than it did relief.

_So yeah_ , he worked hard on the little bugger, for months on end actually - in cafés he didn’t feel like buying anything in and on trains on which he didn’t really have anywhere to go, sleepless nights in the pool house and out on the porch and stopping to look at the stars…

And he loved seeing the credit given where credit was clearly due. Craved it. Breathed it, honestly. 

_But._

But _how_ was he supposed to come up with something new? Something to measure up with the last book? 

Pink Floyd did it, he tells himself, frequently actually (or maybe just _frantically_ ). Listens rather compulsively on _Wish You Were Here_ on repeat to try to break it down and make out what exactly makes a proper follow-up to something so spectacular. His _Dark Side of the Moon_ tattoo, symbolizing the album out before this second masterpiece, mocks him whenever he spots it in the mirror. 

That’s the stage he’s at. Spectacular, rock album of the century… 

Then what? How do you move on? 

It’s been months, and he still hasn’t found the answer. 

And so, when the moving men leave in their truck and starts rolling down the small dirt road from his new little two-story cottage at God-knows-where (or at what’s-it’s-name-again as Harry had referred to it more than once), Harry raises his hand in a silent wave. And it just feels like waving goodbye to his last link to society. 

With his life, or at least his necessities, in cardboard boxes behind him and his friends still in a city he’s left behind; the silence encloses him.

He won’t cry. This is what he wanted. 

He turns around and walks back up to the door, _his_ door, gravel crunching beneath his boots. It’s the afternoon and the sun is still high up, being the beginning of summer or maybe just about the end of spring, but it’s weird when there’s no people to indicate that it’s still actually daytime and not an illusion. No cars rumbling, not even his obnoxious neighbour dog barking away. 

It’s bird song, instead, accompanied by the wind rustling the leaves. It’s a lot to take in for some reason. For some reason, it’s kind of really overwhelming. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he’ll unpack, maybe explore the surroundings. 

Today, he needs _sleep._

Sleep ends up lasting for 13 hours. 

This is okay, he assures himself sitting up in bed with a small, pounding headache. He was disoriented, confused, needed a rest. Maybe his brain feels more settled today. 

He looks around at the boxes, stocked around him like a fortress, a mere sixth or so of his material life packed down into cartons. He blinks at the tall white walls and the randomly discovered patchwork quilt he’s buried himself under, before he heaves a sigh and rolls off the loudly creaking bed. 

He tucks the sheets back under the too-soft-to-be-comfy mattress where they’ve come undone in his uneasy sleep and thinks of how, back in town, his own bed waits for him. So does the novel he was reading that he forgot in his bedside drawer. 

In London, his own apartment building still stands with his cabinets filled with the remains of his food. His shower and his bath. His white, fluffy rug overhis never-creaking floorboards that he walks on to get to his kettle each morning. 

In London, there’s his friends, if he even have that many left to deserve the title. 

In London, there's his life. 

He smears his hands over his face. Sighs, and then he’s over it. Kind of, not really. Ignoring his heart rattling his ribs with anxiety he pads over bare wooden floors, still naked into the bathroom and steps (with only slight resistance) into the bath tub, its shower head alarmingly lacking the full body spray and the white tiles and larger-than-life array of body scrubs and shower gels, but. Then again. His brain is definitely not settled. 

It’s a nice enough shower, if he’s rational. Or bath. Or a shower in a bath. Fuck sake, he’s having a shower in a _bath_. 

Exiting the shower ( _”shower”_ ), scared for his life as he grips the edge of the tub to not slip and literally die, he of course realises he forgot to find his _towel_ and he proceeds to flood the floor with his drip-drip-dripping as he goes to snatch the patchwork quilt from the bed and wrap it around himself like a cocoon. 

He creeps downstairs into the faint morning light, shyly peeking through the windows. It’s so quiet he almost holds his breath. 

He’d stopped and bought milk and cereal on the way over yesterday, but the shop - that also doubled as the only available petrol station and was, at the time, loading up a tractor - didn’t have that whole grain kind that he likes; of course not, because it’s not like anything could ever go _right_ for once, right? Right. 

So, he just declares a staring contest with the off-brand, off-white box when he sets it and himself down at the table some minutes later, hair dripping down on his toned shoulders, quilt disgustingly moist around his hips. 

He thinks he wins. He pushes the carton over to declare this win. 

Ah, sweet conquering, he _totally_ feels better now. 

He sighs heavily, which is like. Totally pointless in the big, empty house. 

And then he’s just kind of _melancholic_. 

He gets his phone from where he’d dropped it off to charge at the table and sees a text from his mum asking how he’s settled in and wishing him a good night. And since Harry had already been asleep for a good few hours when she sent it, he just texts back a red heart and a _yes fine thanks!_

He adds _good morning :)_ as an afterthought. It’s currently 5AM so it should only be two more hours or so before she gets up to let the dogs outside and do her morning gardening; when Harry had gotten his second bestseller settled, he’d bought her a house and she’d quit her job. She’s his favourite person. Especially now that he doesn’t have… 

Well. Whatever. That’s all. 

He’s got some business emails to attend to, some scam ones to be deleted ( _no,_ he doesn’t want to buy bitcoins and _no_ , he definitely doesn’t want an online wife), but instead he’s distracted, itching with loneliness. He starts trying to twirl his hair between his fingers like his usual nervous habit, only to remember, like every other time he’s tried, he cut the length almost brushing his shoulders back to shortness in the week before coming here. It kind of works as a reminder to deal with what’s causing him to feel bad instead of only self-soothing. 

He goes into his contacts and presses the first name in his favourites. The one with the beer pint emojis, golfing man and green clover. Niall had been his friend since his school days; the only one who stayed, or at least, the only one who did so without hidden agendas. 

But there’s no dial tone when he lifts his phone to his ear, biting his thumb, and he breathes out heavily through his nose. 

”Niall speaking,” Niall’s crackly voice responds, and Harry has fallen for that before, a few times actually. But this time it just makes his stomach sink, because he knows how it continues. ”My dumb arse can’t pick up the phone right now, so leave a message after the beep.”

He waits for the tone, then closes his eyes. ”Fuck you,” he rasps, surprised to realise he hasn’t actually spoken in many hours. ”Ring me back, dickhead.”

He puts the phone down on the table, screen down. And then he’s even more melancholic. 

And then he gathers his soggy mess of fabric around his waist, tiptoes upstairs and gets dressed to go for a run. 

What this would mean, should he be back home (which he should probably start to get over that he in fact _isn’t_ ), is either just leaving his house and running around the outer city looking like an absolute maniac, as you do; jumping over cracks in the asphalt and people’s bags and whatnot, greeting every other person and distinctly avoiding eye contact with the rest of them. Harry’s fairly used to getting recognised these past few years, even though he’s very relieved it’s not so often his face that’s on display in the media, but his words and thoughts, book promo or interviews. He does get printed sometimes though, and he’ll stop for pictures and autographs. He’ll give genuine words of gratitude and he’ll speed past paparazzi and reporters (during which it comes well in handy to be able to run fast.)

It could _also_ mean - get this - taking his car out to a park or running laps in the forest, just to get away from the toxicity of the city. Get some fresh air down his lungs instead of just inhaling fumes. Going into nature was always a way to clear his mind, let light into the dark spaces of his mind like opening the blinds. To watch passing trees instead of the sometimes surprised faces. Eat a protein bar at the top of a rocky hill. 

So. 

Hearing gravel crunch under his trainers is a familiar sensation, a sound to rejoice in now that his ears were so accustomed to the suffocating silence of the house. The sun of late-May is casting a warm yellow light on rounded hills up ahead as it starts rising across the early morning sky. His hair is still wet at the ends, drying slowly into its usual half-curly state as he takes off down the dirt road, leading god knows where, ending god knows when. 

But hopefully it’s someplace nice, or whatever. Maybe he’ll just keep running past the same wide fields that all look like copies of the last one and it won’t even feel like he’s going anywhere. Like he’s on a treadmill.

He feels as if he could probably run for hours and not see a single change, no less meet a single soul. 

This turns out to be a blatant overestimation.

It’s a large, yellow stone villa that soon appears down along the path when he’s only just begun to breathe quicker, larger than his own with a grey, tiled roof, white window panes. It’s got a big front garden and all, lived in, sheets hanging out to dry, a Jeep in the driveway. A shrub grows wildly along the side of the house up to the balcony, and it covers the wall, magically, in budding pink and yellow roses. 

He’s surprised, to say the least; he didn’t expect neighbours in Wayfarer Dale, but then again he’s... not too sure if they can even realistically be called such, when they’re not even within eyes’ reach, even from his upstairs window. 

He keeps up his pace as the house comes more into view, tyre tracks in the driveway, a barn of faded white on the opposite side of it, on the other side of the small road. It seems to be one of those that maybe contain horses or maybe even cattle, but like, it’s not nearly as frightening and not nearly as horrible as something Harry would maybe encounter in an activist video arguing for the sake of his own ethical dietary choices, or so. Quite the contrary. 

A window on the side of the house laying in shadow has been left open with the sheer, white curtains dancing in the wind, and a thought that strikes him is _homely_. Another is just plainly: _home_. 

(Maybe he’s just delirious and very, very homesick.)

But this _is_ someone’s home, is the thing. This is someone’s _normal_ , someone’s _everyday_. Living on plains with a good mile or so to the next neighbour, probably no wifi connection and a radio you dial with a knob and one of them TVs that keep losing signal, right? Waking up to milk cows and shit, literally _having cow’s shit_ on your shoes as a granted. 

_Wow_ , Harry thinks, frowning. That must bloody _suck_. 

When he comes up in between the house and the barn, it’s kind of like entering a small village. And he doesn’t mean to snoop, course not, wouldn’t like if anyone tried to glance into his own window either; but the front yard with the lush, green grass catches his attention, is all, how it’s littered with little flowers both in pots and growing wildly on the well-kept grass, a wooden box that crops are also growing from, apple trees not yet bearing fruit. 

He turns his head and drinks in the large facade of the barn. There’s a small grey cat sat cleaning itself in the sunlight, which is adorable; there’s a bunch of small, frosted windows and a discarded bucket, an open black door and then _there’s a man-_

_”Shit.”_

Oh my fucking god. 

There goes Harry fucking _stumbling._

The man looks up then, of course, of _course_ he does and Harry has another reason to nearly fall flat on his face. Not just for those big eyes looking like the loveliest shade of a clear blue sky. 

It’s his arms, is the thing; of course Harry has time to notice his arms even in this moment, this _trying time_ before he starts flailing in midair. It’s the fucking _munchable_ thing that is those biceps, shiny with sweat, tattooed and dirtied up and scuffed, perfectly on display in that black tank top that’s stained with some dry mud in splatters as if made by a frustrated watercolour artist. 

_Listen_. Harry is trying very hard to recover from tripping on thin air, so like, this is a significantly terrible thought to be having, and he _knows_ this, and he kind of just. 

Smiles a goofy smile. Waves. 

The man’s eyebrows stay lowered as he lifts a hand in a cautious wave, He’s got some light stubble, Harry notices as he gulps, below chiseled cheekbones that are just plainly _offensive_. Holding a screwing tool thing for a vehicle, or whatever else kind of concoctions farm people come up with. 

_Farm people._

Mr. Hottie Hunk watches as Harry just, keeps jogging, as if nothing happened. Follows him with his gaze that’s both stern and confused. 

Because _nothing did happen_. He’s already off and he didn’t stop to introduce himself, didn’t apologize for literally running through this stranger’s plot and nearly falling flat on his face, too. 

He stops another two kilometers away, hands on his knees to pant that sweet fresh air. And then just sits down to bask in his utter fucking mortifying embarrassment. 

Welp, there he goes then, fucking objectifying people from the get-go. That’s not very nice _at all_ , and he runs a hand over his face in frustration, because _clearly_ he’s lost his mind. Hot guys, in his experience, tend to have girlfriends anyway. Or boyfriends. Harry shouldn’t cast prejudice; it just seems city folks are a bit more open-minded than they are out in these parts.

So what’s the point of even daydreaming? (Even if they’re handsome and rugged and a quicker walk away for a shag than any Grindr date he’s ever tried; it’s _not nice._ )

It takes him a while before he can muster up the courage to return down the path, but thankfully, the man is gone and the window has been closed. There’s tracks from some kind of vehicle in the road coming up from the barn, and the only sign of life is the grey cat, now asleep on a peeling white bench. 

Harry collapses on the sofa in the lounge (the lounge which really has a despairing lack of anything else to be able to call it such) once he’s back. The white fabric of his shirt is now clinging to his chest, his inked skin visible with the swallows on his chest rising and falling to each shallow breath. His lungs feel cold and useless despite the hot air, and he will distinctly _not_ think about how he just made a complete fool of himself (which ultimately becomes the only thing he _can_ think about), so it’s an easy decision to pull his phone out as a distraction. 

After replying to a text from his mum demanding to know why he was up so early, like a teenager being scolded for being up _late_ , he opens up his online newspaper of choice. Thank god a handy man already set up his shitty Wi-Fi or he’d possibly be throwing a tantrum.

News outlets usually have very few updates on him, or any other authors at all, and today is no exception. It’s not like he only cares for news about himself, mind you, but it brings back that feeling that sits itself so heavy in his brittle chest. Like no one even realises he’s gone. 

His friends know, obviously. The mail company, and the book one, his manager and his mum and the neighbours he’s acquainted with. His family said they’d come visit sometime in the next week, once he’s settled. 

He’ll certainly not settle in that time. 

He scrolls through Twitter instead but nothing seems too interesting. He reads some shitposts and less wise musings, occasionally snorting a laugh. People are tagging him in memes, fanart, and other random tweets to do with his books and characters ( _what’s fanfiction?_ ), and he presses like one of them on a whim, just because it made him smile for a split second, and really, it’s just for the hell of it. They’ll be posting screenshots of their notification. Maybe tell him thanks in caps or do a keyboard smash. He closes the app before he can watch it all unravel. 

He sinks back into the cushions and sighs, buries the heels of his palms into his eyes. You know it’s too quiet when you can hear a grandfather clock tick away from the other end of the house. 

Maybe he should get a dog. A cat, like the grey one he saw at the farm-- oh, yeah. Oh, god.

_That_ whole thing. 

He gets up and physically shakes it all off while taking a deep breath. He should probably hit the shower again. He should probably brush his teeth or something. 

Instead, he makes his way over to unpack his laptop. 

He unpacks his kettle too, and brings out the teabags he bought yesterday, which are just some shit Earl Grey knockoff but it will certainly do just as well right now in his current state. 

He pours himself a large cup and sits down at the kitchen table with his laptop. He’s got a love scene and some pining planned ahead; better just write it now while the mood is right. 

A sugar cube gets plopped into his cup, and then he’s typing away. 

He’s interrupted as early as an hour later by his stomach grumbling rudely loudly, and he suddenly remembers how he did in fact skip breakfast in favour for punching the cereal box over. It still lies there in defeat behind his laptop screen. 

Welp. That was productive. 

Harry walks back into his bedroom and strips himself of clothing once he’s passed over the threshold, finds his towel this time and steps into the shower, can’t help the depressing shower thoughts that instantly whirr in his mind. He raids his suitcase to put on jeans and a tropical-themed shirt (a fan favourite as well as a personal one… which does nothing to help him forget how much he misses home), and with a few buttons left stylishly uncared for he grabs his car keys, his leather jacket and his sunglasses. He’ll probably meet around _one_ person. Which will be the balding shop keeper he already met yesterday afternoon. Hopefully he’s impressed by his efforts. 

At least he can _pretend_ he’s having a great time. 

The shop has this obnoxious bell that rings over your head when you step foot into the fluorescent light and the scent of detergent and like, something like iron (how many dead bodies has he got in the backroom?) hits you like a slap in the face. 

It’s not in the least welcoming, and especially not when Harry can hear _Jessie’s Girl_ play over the rumbling air conditioning. Because it reminds him of good times, of dancing manically with friends and, well. Here he is stocking frozen foods in his arms all a-fucking-lone. 

He’s not much for cooking. Baking, absolutely, but cooking is clearly a team sport, and he’d rather play the one sitting on the counter, dangling his feet, drinking red wine and talking shit. He also accepts a pick-and-mix type salad bar, but wouldn’t suppose he’d find one within the nearest proximity.

He dips the sunglasses down over his eyes and goes to dump everything - meaning some frozen pasta dishes and bread, rice cakes and instant coffee among other things - by the cash register. The man starts to tap it in. ”Bag?”

Harry searches his pockets for his wallet, eyes downcast. ”Yeah, thank you.”

Maybe, _maybe_ if he’d just picked a career as an actor or a singer, things would have been different. 

Maybe he’d have been asked something like _hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?_ , or why not an awe-struck _you were great in..._ , insert critically acclaimed movie here. Have to awkwardly sign some napkins that should be used for hotdog grease, maybe this guy’s shiny, balding scalp; he’s not that picky. 

But he doesn’t even get a second glance as the cashier gives him back his card then bags his groceries. It’s not even like Harry’s conceited, like, he doesn’t exactly _expect_ everyone to know who he is just like that. But he can’t say he doesn’t suddenly miss at least someone knowing his name. Someone asking how he is. How was your night? How’s the boyfriend? 

Harry just, really misses someone who _loves_ him. 

But, fuck it. He won’t go down that dark road. 

When he’s back outside he puts his bag in the car and then leans against the side of it, sighing. He smells petrol from the pumps just outside the shop, mostly. Sees green, empty land apart from this blot of asphalt around him that’s scuffed his new shoes already. 

Tension headaches are one thing. Feeling like you’ve made the worst decision in your life is another. 

Why the _fuck_ isn’t Niall up yet?

It’s just around noon now but the sky’s gone dark, which he can tell from his sunglasses doing quite a mint job of making him absolutely blind. He slides them back to the top of his hair and tips his head back. 

It’s just in time to have a raindrop splat against his nose, and like... Great. No, that’s brilliant! Fucking- _god_ that’s just so fucking _amazing!_

When he climbs into the car he can see the man watch him through the window, raindrops falling against the glass. Kind of eerie. Kind of don’t give a shit anymore. He’ll have to go knocking on a good three or, maybe just two, houses in the area before he finds him to ultimately kill or kidnap him, for sure; that’s his only comfort. 

He speeds down the country roads, angry about the lack of cars for the first time in his life. Angry about the serene, vast fields and heavy sky. 

He didn’t ask for this. Didn’t ask for solitude and an existential crisis. All he wanted was to be able to write. To remove himself from the same old concrete grounds and walls drenched with anxiety to create something new. To stop seeing gossip magazines all around him talk about the biggest source of melancholy in his life, to still see it plastered on the front pages, still with all the details. Accosting paparazzis. Journalists breathing down his neck for another sob story to sell to the masses he thought he could trust. 

When Harry lost the one he loved the most, to someone he thought he could trust. But it hurts too much to think about now.

It’s been about half of the ten minute drive (which is the time when he easily speeds through it, because, no traffic and plain sight to see potential animals getting in his way, so it’s valid) when there’s suddenly a loud noise he’s never heard before.

It’s like a strange pang, and yet he thinks he knows _exactly_ what happened. 

Oh, god. Oh fucking _no._

He rolls on valiantly a few more meters or so before the road suddenly gets significantly more bumpy. But it’s just flat asphalt. 

He stops the car, twists the key. Drops his forehead against the wheel. 

_Flat fucking tyre._

He’s fucked, is his initial thought. Absolutely fucked, because he knows no one out here, his phone has no bloody service. He’s got a spare tyre in the back, with no knowledge on how to change one. 

There’s not too much of a choice. 

He leaves his car and starts walking. 

He’s frustrated, oh you better believe it, he’s absolutely _pissed_ and it’ll be like an _hour_ before he’s even turning a right to the dirt road leading home, even longer before he can call a mechanic and _goddamn it his goddamn bag of food, it’ll be all melted and shit._

He jumps over a fence at random, struggles a little and almost just topples over. He lands in thankfully still-not-all-too-wet grass on the other side and kicks at it like a grumpy toddler.

Really, he knows just what he’s looking like, fists deep into his pockets and head hanging low. He _feels_ ridiculous too. He’s so out of his element, it’s like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He hates the countryside. He hates the rain and he hates the grass and the trees and the birds happily singing

Harry _hates_ Wayfarer Dale. 

The rain is easy on him but still enough to make his blood boil, which maybe is a good thing given his light summery top and ripped jeans that should make him rattle his teeth any second now. The rolling hills ahead show no sanctuary, should God decide to fuck with him some more. Maybe some hail while we’re at it? 

So he keeps walking through green grass and dirt, soon to be a bitch on his Oxfords, once liquified by the rain. 

He’s nearly startled the first time he hears it; he has to stop dead in his tracks. 

It’s a man’s voice, somewhere up in the hills. _What?_

Within a few more seconds of avid listening as he sneaks closer, he realises the man is _cooing_. Like talking to a baby, or a dog. 

And it’s not just any man. Shocker. Who else lives here?

Harry’s thighs are straining when he gets to the top of the hill, and as soon as he can see past the other side he’s quicker than _lightning_ to maneuver himself to his stomach. Keeping covered, he lies watching with wide eyes. 

It’s the man from earlier. His shortish, brown hair is in a fringe across his forehead, a plaid shirt now disguising those perfect arms and he’s, like. _Literally_ talking to a cow. 

_Why’s_ he talking to a _fucking cow?_

He’s got a bucket in his hand, feeding the brown-spotted creature while patting down its neck or whatever; hey, it’s not like Harry knows basic cow anatomy. She eats cautiously, looking blissful and devout, big eyes blinking slowly. (Harry would too if this guy was caressing him, let’s be honest with ourselves.)

The guy’s got a red four-wheeled motorbike - a _quad_ , right? - parked some meters away, a car trailer loaded with yellow stray attached to the back of it. 

So apparently this little old lady’s getting all the best treatment in the world, huh? Maybe she’s been sick or hurt and needs tending to. Or maybe he feeds all his cattle individually, this lovingly. Who’s Harry to judge? He doesn’t know basic farm people manners either, does he?

He can’t hear what he’s saying, but voice, in some way, gets his heart feeling sort of fond, whatever the words may be. That angry glare from earlier really doesn’t match up with the tone of it. This is a completely different person. 

”Eat up, my darling,” he hears at one point, which is a particular heart-throbber. ”Beautiful girl.”

Harry can’t help but smile as he watches them bond. That’s true love right there. The power couple nobody knew they needed. 

Wow okay so, if a cow can get a guy like this by just being, a _cow_ , why can’t _Harry_ get a boyfriend to cherish him endlessly like he dearly desires? He’s been single for months, _fuck,_ it’s so far overdo. Someone should definitely come and praise him and feed him purple grapes or something. Wonder if the store is familiar with the concept of fresh fruit. 

Harry is scared half to death when he suddenly feels someone _breathing into his hair._

He actually _shrieks_ , probably, not even _sure_ because he’s panicking as he spins over on his back and fights very hard to decide what the hell is suddenly towering above him. It takes him a few more seconds, and a surprised _chuckle_ coming from the guy below the hill, to realise he’s staring right into the face of… 

Another cow. 

Oh! _Hilarious._

It’s being led away then, by no one else than the handsome guy himself, suddenly next to him. 

”Sorry, man,” he says, still snickering, patting the animal on the head as she stares up at him with huge, beady eyes. (What a fucking beast… Cow’s not too tame either, wink, wink.) He looks over his shoulder at Harry. ”You alright there?”

Harry’s still lying on the ground with his knees drawn up as some sort of protection. He thought he was about to be killed. He probably shouldn’t admit this aloud. 

”I thought I was about to be killed,” he admits, very much aloud. 

The guy heartily _laughs_ then, crinkly-eyed and sweet, and it would be heart-warming if Harry wasn’t currently embarrassed beyond belief. ”You can relax, mate. Amelia’s really quite friendly.”

Harry frowns. He gets up off the ground, brushing dirt off his jeans. ”Afraid I don’t find this terribly amusing,” he mutters moodily. He gestures around himself. ”Why would you have wild animals roaming around like this, so someone could get hurt?”

”They’re not wild.” It’s the guy’s time to frown, pointing behind Harry, but there’s still a smile playing subtly on his lips, curling upwards. ”That’s what the _fence_ is for.”

Harry rolls his eyes. Right. The fence he climbed. 

_Whatever._

He puts his sunglasses into the pocket of his leather jacket, checking it too for stains from the dirt. The guy watches him silently for a beat. ”You’re the guy I saw earlier, yeah?” he says. 

He almost can’t believe he’d have remembered him. See, Harry’s used to being recognized, by strangers, mostly. Several times a day. He just didn’t think he deserved a memory slot in this beautiful man’s beautiful mind, especially not since he only saw him for the split second he was literally stumbling, half-falling, past him, through his property while staring stalkerishly. 

(Which was totally legitimate by the way, because still, in this moment, the only way he can describe this guy is as _a sodding hot hunk_ with a side of _please can I sit on your face_.)

”Yeah. I’ve moved into the house on the same road, so.” Harry reaches his hand out, tries his best to look unbothered. ”Hi. Harry. Part time jogger.” 

And full time embarrassment.

The man grabs his hand, and, God. He didn’t think big, strong, calloused hands were a turn-on for him until this day, that’s for sure. ”I’m Louis.” He gives it a shake and a squeeze. ”Your very friendly neighbour.”

”With the very friendly cows,” Harry adds, and Louis huffs a laugh. He has such emotions in his eyes, something sweet, as if Harry’s an endearing fool for screaming bloody murder in his field because of a cow. He can deal with that. He likes to be endearing. 

But there’s something devilishly menacing, too, like this is _extremely humorous_ to him, to, you know, encounter a stranger screaming bloody murder in his field because of a cow. 

(This is such a strange day.)

The skies are clearing up slightly, but it’s still a bit dark out, setting the perfect mood for a romantic walk in just these sort of hills, he thinks, should you just have someone to walk with. 

But all Harry has right now is messy hair and damaged pride, so all he really wants is to just go to the house, have a warm bubble-bath, chat with Niall on the phone about all the weird things that have for some reason been happening, preferably while wearing a stress-reducing face mask and sipping chamomile tea. Then he’ll go sleep off the memory of the mistake that’s inherently his every life choice, one after the other. 

”Why were you in here getting all acquainted with old Amelia anyway?” Louis asks him then, and Harry honestly almost forgot how fucked he is in the compartment of even actually _going to the house._

”Flat tyre,” he sighs hopelessly, gestures with a sloppy arm movement to his car, still within eyeshot. ”Didn’t have reception to call the mechanic.”

Louis seems to look at him like are-you-joking-me mixed with concern. 

”Mate, the closest mechanic is like an hour from here.” Of course. ”And overpriced.” He reckoned as much. Louis seems to think, eyebrows furrowed. ”Have you got a new tyre with you?”

”In the trunk, think so, yeah.”

”And a car jack?”

”Uh…”

Louis smiles. ”That’s the thing you hoist the car up with. You know the one.”

Harry’s still as puzzled. ”I mean.” He narrows his eyes a little. ”Sure.”

It seems to do. ”Sick.” Louis points behind him. ”Why don’t you hop on the quad, we’ll go and have it changed for you. No problem.”

Harry’s heart is going to positively explode with affection. ”Thought they were overpriced,” he says, _extremely_ puzzled at this point, like no more strange things can even possibly happen. 

Louis gets his point across by just giving him a long, meaning look. 

Oh my god. He’s changing it _for_ him. 

And suddenly Harry is just _screaming_ on the inside. ”Oh! No, no, no. No way, man, I couldn’t ask for that,” he insists, stressed but also, _utterly charmed_. ”I’ll just walk-”

”Another. Hour.” Louis interrupts him as a reminder. Sternly so. And he sternly points. ”Go on then. Or are you scared of little old Rosie?”

Harry stares down into the other cow’s eyes. Course not. He huffs at Louis and starts walking down the hill. 

He almost slips in mud and wet grass a few times as he goes, and if Louis notices, he’s doing a very fantastic job of being polite and not laughing at him and his… utter _incapability._ To just, _exist_. He must think he’s such a dumb city boy; God knows he feels like one. 

(Maybe Louis should teach him. And can maybe this teaching be done like how when someone shows you to play golf or something, wraps their arms around you and guide your hands along the club? How does he achieve as much touching as possible with the excuse that he needs it for his _farm life education?_ )

He hops on the quad with a little more effort than is probably expected and turns to flip hair out of his face, just to see Louis already down the hill in like three seconds flat, like nothing. The dried dirt up to the ankles of his wellington boots tell the story of someone quite experienced in the subject of walking through this type of landscape. 

”Just gonna feed my love some more,” Louis explains, gesturing to the cow called Rosie so that Harry can’t help but feel at least a little bit jealous. Of a cow. 

He exchanges an understanding smile for Louis’s apologizing one before he turns so that Harry thinks, at least in general, he’s feeling quite alright now. Better than before, no doubt, when he was tired and pissed off and most of all, alone. He doesn’t feel too awfully alone anymore. 

He’s already made three friends right here in this pasture, hasn’t he?

“I didn’t catch your last name, by the way?” Louis asks as he turns towards the trailer, catching Harry off-guard.

“Oh, yeah, no,” Harry says, fumbling for any type of words at all in his mind. Famous person rule number 1 is: don’t let people know who you are if they already don’t. It comes with certain disadvantages. “Nicks.”

It’s totally not the singer of Fleetwood Mac.

“What’s yours?” he asks immediately, not wanting Louis to even consider the possibility it’s a blatant lie to uncomfortable scenarios.

“Louis Tomlinson,” Louis replies, and it’s just not fair that in his one moment of calm - the first one in weeks, actually - Louis grabs one of those big farm things that look like big forks (is there honestly anyone that knows their technical term?) and starts loading off the stray stuff. 

Watching his concentrated face and listening to the little huffs ( _sexy groans oh my fucking god_ ) he emits, Harry bites his lip, and. It’s just. It’s just not _fair_. 

Truly, that’s just _messed up_ how attractive he makes it. Look at those muscles. Look at his cute little tummy and the soft curve of his hip under the shirt riding up over sun-kissed skin. Oh, fuck _off_ , honestly. 

“Quite regal”, Harry mutters, because honestly? What a dick. A beautiful face _and_ a beautiful name, that’s just not possible. 

Louis Tomlinson scoffs a reply. He pets the cow down her side like she’s the sweetest thing he’s ever seen; he _kisses_ her _forehead_. ”There we are, angel,” Louis coos, then turns around to throw the fork thingy back in its place. He walks up to Harry and gestures for him to scooch back. ”May I?”

”Taking me to the dance, are we now?” Harry can’t help but say with a smirk, sliding back on the seat so Louis can sit down in front of him. 

And only now does he realise what this means. Oh god, oh wow, is he going to have to put his arms around his middle, around that perfectly plump and rounded waist? Put his cheek on his shoulder and try his very _hardest_ not to get a _hard-on?_

Who even needed a golf-learning analogy? Teach him to ride a _quad!_ Teach him _horseback riding!_ (Teach him _other ways_ of riding. That would do, too. But Harry’s already quite the expert.)

Farm people are straight, Harry reminds himself. Farm people. They’re _straight_. 

(However much this guy may looks like he should be on the cover of any male hottie magazine Harry keeps at the bottom of his bedside drawer at home. _Christ._ )

”Oh yeah, uh huh, Cinderella mission right here,” Louis states, turns the engine on with a loud revving noise. ”Almost got your shoe stuck in the mud there anyway, didn’t you?”

They’re really here referencing Harry as a princess and Louis as a prince. Well, Cinderella only became one after she evidently married the prince. 

So… 

”Let’s go get my pumpkin ready, then,” he suggests dreamily. 

Louis must be frowning hardcore at that. ”Huh?”

”I mean, you know. How Cinderella had a pumpkin made into a chariot or whatever?” He does put his hands on him then, just his waist. Just lightly, so very gently. ”My car, Louis. Let’s go to my car.”

”Oh!” He sees Louis look down at his hands on him, but that’s. Fine. Just observing, as people do. ”Yeah, let’s go. Hold on tight then, Cindy.”

He kickstarts and Harry yelps, truly wraps his arms around his middle in shock. Not quite sure _where_ to place _that_ on his list of embarrassing moments, but he doesn’t remove his hands and Louis makes no effort to do so either. 

And it would seem that you get _abs of steel_ from loading hay and stuff. Not that Harry is touching them. 

Not _unnecessarily much_ , anyway. 

They stop by his car and Harry immediately unlinks his arms. It’s like he’s trying to brush over his slip-up but really, they _should_ talk about that. They should do it more often. All the time. 

But Louis gets off the quad and Harry silently follows after a moment of struggle. There’s grey, dried stains up the sides of his car, which was clearly never something he ever had to face in London. Barely even drove there anyway, just took the bike or the taxi. This car is a rental from where he got off his train and these legs were, evidently, totally, made for walking.

There’s a millisecond of utmost fear when he thinks he’s dropped his key somewhere in the enormous pastur, then locates it in _the other pocket_ and unlocks it to the familiar click noise. ”She’s a beautiful one,” Louis murmurs then, while Harry has his back still turned to him. 

And Harry has time to think; oh no, here comes straight-man-Louis’s beautiful farmer wife, strutting down the hills in some long dress and long, blonde braids to kiss him senseless. 

Then realises he’s talking about his _car._

Fuck sake.

”Thanks,” he mumbles, opens the trunk for him. ”I don’t know anything about cars.”

”That’s absolutely fine. I’m sure you’re good at other things.” Louis’s grinning when he turns back, playful. 

It’s partly _funny_ , because Harry’s been labelled the best author of the decade and Louis seems to have no clue about any of it; it’s partly _painful_ , because of how sexually suggestive he makes things sound, at least after they’ve been processed through Harry’s dirty mind. 

”I just hope you can figure out what a jack looks like,” he continues smugly. 

Well. Harry’s certainly up for the challenge. 

He doesn’t have a lot of things back in the trunk, just a bottle of motor oil, an umbrella, baby wipes for when you want to maybe eat lunch and have clean hands. The normal. 

There’s also this strange - clearly alien - red metal thing with a matching red rod attached that he never paid much attention to, next to a metal cross he’s never as much as touched before. He points to the red thing with a questioning little sound. 

Louis replies with a pleasantly surprised one. ”That’s actually it.” He studies the interior. ”Didn’t have many options though, if we’re fair.”

”What do you mean I can’t change a tyre with an umbrella?” Harry murmurs sarcastically. He grabs the jack but, oh. ”It’s heavy.”

Louis chuckles, takes a step forward, lifts it off and puts it on the ground next to the car - and Harry only had time to just blink. ”We’ve got to loosen the screws first,” he points out, clearly an expert in the field (pun intended?), in comparison to Harry, ”so hand me that lug wrench, would you please?”

”The _what now?”_

Louis doesn’t even seem disappointed. Maybe he’s already used to him. ”The cross-thing,” he explains pedagogically, smiling good-naturedly. 

Ah, now _that_ , Harry knows, because he knows _shapes_. Like a _toddler_. 

He reaches it over to him, and Louis does something so horrible then. Well, first he smiles and says thank you, which isn’t at all horrible but then, he, fucking. Puts the thing onto one of the screws on the tyre and uses his _extreme muscle power_ to make it loosen. With a little concentrated wrinkle between his eyebrows and a strained huff of breath and all!

Why would he? How _could_ he?

Four screws later, and with a first seat view for Harry to see those munchable biceps in action, then he’s putting the lug wrench away next to himself in the gravel. ”Now, this goes in here,” he explains, and he puts the rod into the jack, somehow, so that it suddenly works as a lever. ”And then you pump that to hoist it up.” 

Harry gives him a deadpan look. Louis gives him one back. 

He clears his throat and turns his head down with a little shake. ”I mean, then _I_ pump it…”

Harry snickers, sees Louis’s own secret smirk as he starts working the lever until the car is tilted just right. He can’t help but feel his heart flutter, because Louis _pumping it_ is not a mental image he should be having. 

But he’s also busy being nervous the car might just tip over, and then it would get hurt; but it’s not like it’s his _actual_ human baby. Just that it’s currently his only way of transportation which very much makes _Harry_ feel like he’s the vulnerable baby. 

But Louis could also just drive him home on his quad (and they’d live happily ever after). 

It’s only around three minutes later Louis is pressing some magic button on the jack and the car is lowered again, new and improved tyre in place. That was an experience. A journey. He’d like to try that out again. 

”Thank you _so_ much,” Harry starts, breathless with awe, but Louis is already waving him off. ”No, honestly, jesus christ. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. So grateful, mate, _honestly_ , I-”

”It’s nothing,” Louis smiles, earnest, loading the equipment back in his trunk. ”We’re neighbours. We can do favours for one another.”

Harry smiles at the possibilities. ”If I come over for a cup of sugar, you’ll lend me some?”

”I’ll even help you make the cake.” Louis straightens up, puts his hands on his hips and stretches his back with a little sigh. _”And_ help you eat it.”

So now Harry is going to have to _bake_ , like _everyday_ ; show the skills he recruited while working in a café to afford instant noodles while he was in college. Maybe pretend his sink broke or something, because plumbers must be highly charged around here too. Walk out in lingerie and play _Careless Whisper_ like a bad porno, he plots manically, as he steals a peek at Louis’ tanned tummy where his shirt rides up as he stretches. Show the tattoo with the lyrics for the song wrapping his ankle, as Louis wraps his legs around his waist? That’s a good plan. 

”Thank you,” Harry mumbles through a coy smile. And he’s not one to usually get coy. ”Are you fine riding on that thing alone then?”

”The _quad?”_ And yeah, Harry actually knows what ’that one’ is called, but why not embrace the young, dumb and broke aesthetic a little while longer? ”I’ll be right behind you. Don’t even worry, lad. Go on home.”

Harry opens the driver door, but lingers. ”Can I just ask… What were you doing out here at all?”

Louis seems endeared at best. ”Amelia’s been feeling a little on the rough side.” He drums his fingers against the steering wheel of the quad. ”Brought her some goodies but I think I need to be taking her back home, but moving cows isn’t the simplest task all the time.” The soft voice is suddenly exchanged. ”Are you making me stay out here freezing my arse off for a reason? Am I waiting to be pranked or something?”

What would the prank be? Yo you just changed this stranger’s tyre and he can’t find a good way to repay you! - No, wait, that’s actually the reality of the situation. He already agreed to it. Audience silence. 

Harry smirks at him though, slipping his sunglasses back down on his nose. ”See you back home, then,” he says with a finger gun towards him, which Louis returns with a blank face that he can’t hold for even a second before it breaks into a smile, and then Harry’s sinking into the seat and fastening his seatbelt. 

He checks the rearview mirror, his bags thankfully keeping the melted ice water contained and, thankfully, his cereal is on top and doesn’t look too soggy. He almost forgot how hungry he was. That doesn’t look too appetizing though. 

He also sees Louis swing his leg to get on his quad, so Harry starts his car, keeps track by occasionally looking up in the mirror so that Louis is following as he drives down the road to a song on the radio he could always recognise; even when crackly, staticy, drifting in and out of channels. 

_”If I could, baby, I’d give you my world”_ , it goes. _”How can I when you won’t take it from me?”_

He taps the wheel as he hums along. _”You could go your own way...”_

Sure did. He sure did. 

When he turns up into his driveway Louis passes him not soon after, waving gleefully as he continues forward, back to his own house. Harry waves back, though he’s not sure if he can see it, because he’s still in the car. 

He crashes his forehead against the steering wheel. 

Which kind of hurts, but he needs to just. _Groan._

There’s so much of this day he can’t believe happened, and it’s only around midday. More surprises can surely be fitted into his schedule. If his manager was here he’d tell him to cancel the rest of the _week_ to process it all. But he’s alone. He plans his own schedule. He forgot he was hungry, but now it’s definitely time to sit down for a meal. 

He gets out and starts to load his groceries out of the bag, mashes them down in the freezer, but exchanges the planned breakfast toast for a delicious (sarcasm intended) pasta and sauce lunch. 

As he waits for the microwave to ping, this is, of course, when Niall decides to call. 

He picks up on the second ring. ”You absolute dickhead.”

”Woah,” Niall’s croaky morning voice replies down the other end. ”Already been called that today. Around ten seconds ago. By past you on voicemail.”

Harry closes his eyes and rubs his temple. ”Past me was less pissed off than current me,” he acknowledges. 

Niall scoffs. ”I’m in for a treat then? Was out at the pub last night, lad. Sorry I’m not up at fuck o’clock in the morning while working on award-winning novels.” Harry rolls his eyes and puts Niall - his phone - down on the counter with speaker on. ”6AM, was it? 5? _Seriously?_ What’s up, man?”

And then Harry has to somehow sum up a meeting with a very attractive farmer. How his car broke down in the middle of nowhere, how he was almost definitely killed by a wild beast and finally how the farmer also friendzoned him, or _neighbourzoned_ , more like. But this was after changing Harry’s flat tyre as if it was as easy as picking up a pencil. 

The microwave pings in the midst of it all, so the other half of his discourse is emitted in between discrete munching as he tries to rant, but also not speak with his mouth full, but _also_ not starve. He hears Niall suddenly rustle with a bag and then chomp crunchily, like the microwave was a Pavlovian bell for starting snacktime. Makes Harry feel less barbaric, at the least. Good friend. 

”So now I’m home, eating my fucking pasta,” Harry grumbles then, poking at a frozen bit he procrastinates reheating. Curtain, applause, lights dim. The story so far. 

Niall’s quiet for a beat. ”You’re not even going to tell me what the house is like?” he questions suddenly and god, yeah, he’s moved away from one of his best mates to live in a foreign ghost town. He almost forgot. He almost forgot a lot of things. ”How’s the view? What’s the _weather?”_

Shit, shit, and shit. 

”Listen, man,” Harry starts, finally gets up to put his plate back in the microwave to reheat. ”Let’s not- How was _your_ day?”

Niall’s incredulous. _”Mine?”_

”Yeah. Things back home. All the updates, _please_ , like. How’re the dogs? Did Liam find a ring yet? Did you score any hole-in-ones?”

”The dogs are _fine_ ,” Niall emphasizes as Harry inwardly face palms over what he just said. Whoopsie daisy. Asking questions he shouldn’t let anyone know are even sometimes on his mind, about people who evidently aren’t even his friends anymore, but he’s not supposed to talk about it. ”You’ve been gone a day and I was at the pub last night, so no, no hole-in-ones, babylove.” Then he seems to grin though. ”But there will be. I can feel it…”

Harry doesn’t have to prompt him anymore; Niall happily goes on about his own last 24 hours that Harry’s spent getting acquainted with Wayfarer Dale as Harry eats the remains of his lunch. It feels nice to know things are keeping on going as normal back home, people still living their lives, the earth still spinning around its orbit. 

It still also feels strange as fuck that they do exactly that, while Harry can’t touch or interfere with any of it. Not with Niall’s dog Nelly, not with Liam’s choice of engagement rings. He never liked him much, did he, so he’d probably detest his taste. They never shared much in common, he supposes.

Except for his taste in men. That’s the only thing they shared; until it ultimately became Harry’s doom. And Harry ended up all alone, and Harry had to get away. 

He sets himself down with his laptop and a new cup of tea an hour later - when Niall’s hung up with the excuse he’s got to hit the gym and make something of himself, despite sleeping away half the day - and opens his document. Harry loves living vicariously through the characters. Ready to pour some thoughts out. The readers have to just, drink them, he guesses.


	2. give a little bit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bantering<3

On the first day of June, Harry wakes up to the sound of something scraping his window and he’s up and awake in two seconds flat thinking he’s about to be _killed._

It still takes him rubbing the sleep from his eyes before he can actually focus them, literally stands nearly naked in the middle of the bedroom save for his black boxers, squinting manically to make out what’s apparently trying to climb through his second story window. 

What a horrifying few seconds it is. 

When he does, he’s not sure if relief or _disappointment_ is the biggest emotion settling in his stomach. 

Because he would have honestly anticipated a masked robber balancing on the window sill, scraping his merry way inside his bedroom. And the reality is just so underwhelming. So much for some drama. He could have used it for his book. 

It’s the grey cat from yesterday, probably having climbed the old oak tree in his garden and jumped the distance from a branch. He sighs, chest heaving and all, but then can’t help but smile weakly at its fluffy little face as it tilts its head and meows at him, tapping at the window with its paw. 

He opens the window and lets it jump inside, instantly stroking itself against his leg looking mighty proud. Harry goes to pet its head when his phone silently lights up with a notification from his mum and he notices the time. 

”Why are you up so early?” he asks the cat gruffly, watching with heavy eyes as the screen fades back to black, concealing the tragic 06:37. 

The cat _mrows_ before trotting off into the hallway. 

Well then. 

Harry follows, vaguely amused by the way it walks with its tail held high, like it owns the place. Maybe it does. Harry’s not too sure about the owners that were here before him, seeing as his manager sorted it all. Maybe it’s the previous owners, as ghosts, spirits caught in the body of one sassy cat. Maybe the cat is the estate agent. 

”What’s your name, little one?” Harry wonders absently as he watches it stroke its forehead fondly against a chair leg. ”Princess, hm? Dutchess?”

It looks up at him with big, yellow eyes. 

”O’Malley the alley cat?” 

Had it been a human, maybe it would have scoffed. Instead, it flicks its little ear, turns around and sets off down the stairs. Clearly doesn’t know a reference to _Aristocats_. Harry’s just a 90’s kid. 

He can feel the proper grin spreading on his face as he curiously follows. 

The cat plants itself in front of his front door and looks at him expectantly. ”You don’t want anything? Milk?” He crosses his arms and levels it with a look. ”Got a new bottle just yesterday. I couldn’t finish it all myself.”

The cat meows again, so Harry sighs. Damned teenagers these days. He leans over it and to unlock the door, pushes it open while supporting himself against the wall. 

He follows it with his gaze as it bounces outside, follows it all the way down the gravel path, when he finally notices a huge shape in his peripheral vision. 

He lifts his head just in time to see _Louis_ getting off a fucking _horse._

Louis notices him too then, looking over his shoulder, and he _startles_ so much his boot ends up catching on the step in the saddle. 

He’s about a millisecond of a reflex away from landing flat on his face before he twists and finds footing with his free leg. 

Harry’s still frozen in the same position, and suddenly doesn’t know whether to _laugh_ , or run over and ask if he’s okay. Maybe not in that order. Maybe check for signs of life before anything else. 

But Louis’ just there flailing around, very much alive and literally trying to _jump on one leg_ while working frantically to get the other one loose, fringe in his eyes and a comically moody expression on his face to replace the extremely frightened one just a moment ago from nearly falling as he curses wildly under his breath. So. 

Harry bends himself in half cackling at the sight. 

Louis eventually gets his other foot down from the saddle thing and tries so very hard to brush off the blush now sporting his sun-tanned face. ”Damn stupid saddle,” he grits out. 

Oh but Harry’s not quite done laughing, although he bites it back down and wipes a fake tear from his eye. Even from this distance, he can see a smirk tug on Louis’ lips, however much he tries not to let it show. 

”Have you quite finished?”

Harry shakes his head and draws a deep breath, blinks a few times. ”I think that was the best thing that happened to me all week,” he concludes on the breath out. 

_And all month_ , he doesn’t say. 

Louis crosses his arms, now grinning too. ”Afraid I don’t find it terribly amusing.”

Which, oh. That’s what Harry said himself, when he got scared from a cow and Louis had a laugh at his expense. Ah, how tables have turned. 

Harry straightens up, hand still by the doorframe. He gives a last scoff. ”Guess we’re even.”

Only _then_ does Harry seem to remember his utter lack of _clothes_. But it’s too late now. He twitches, might tense up a bit, but realises in mild horror there’s not a single thing he can do about it now and manages to stay right there like it’s the most _normal_ thing in the world to greet your hot neighbour in only undies. 

The distance won’t allow him to tell if Louis’s eyes travel anyways. 

(But they do. Oh my god they totally do.)

But Louis snaps out of it, looks off across the fields all cool as he clears his throat loudly. ”Well I just came down by to ask if you knew where my old Dusty’s gone.” He looks down at the cat roaming Harry’s lawn. ”You found her.”

”I found her,” Harry echoes, watching her tail go as she intently watches an insect fly. O’Malley the alley cat - with the wanderlust, the need to walk the scene, as they sing about in the old movie - is actually named something as tame as Dusty. ”Or _she_ found me. Came in right through my window.”

Louis full-on frowns. ”Really?”

”Yeah.” Harry chuckles. ”Honestly. Thought I had a murderer at my window sill, then see it’s just, a cat. So I let her in, only to have her walk straight out again. I dunno what she wanted.”

Louis seems to process this. ”Huh,” he goes, astounded. He pats the horse down its side when it suddenly snorts. ”She’s not really that… forward, usually. Avoids strangers, mostly.”

”A good girl.”

”I know right? It’s just funny, she’s about as unsocial as me.”

Dusty catches a fly in her mouth and Louis bursts out a laugh. 

Harry smiles at her, scratching around his messy, long hair. ”This why you live in the middle of nowhere and have cows as friends?”

He realises he’s said something bad when the words have left his mouth. Thing is, by then it’s already too late to take them back. Science. 

He looks up bashfully at Louis, who’s still watching the cat with a blank expression, not meeting his eye. Harry wraps his arms around himself. 

”I’ll have to show you around someday,” Louis muses, drumming his fingers against the saddle. He chews thoughtfully on his lip. ”It’s not all bad.”

”I know,” Harry rushes to say, an ache in his chest. ”Only joking.”

Louis smiles at him. ”I know.” Then he lingers. And then Harry lingers too. Then Louis sighs, patting the saddle. ”Well,” he announces, grabs ahold of it and somehow swings his leg over the top of the horse standing at least a head taller than Harry (how? What? Oh my). ”I’ll be going. This baby has got her morning walk.”

Harry blinks. ”It’s 6:30.” Surely a horse isn't that punctual. 

Louis furrows his brow. ”A half hour after six,” he deadpans, grabbing the reins. ”Your point being...?” 

Harry’s stunned. He shrugs. ”And a half hour to seven.”

Louis smiles. He kicks his feet lightly and the horse starts walking. ”See you around, Harry.”

Harry watches him for a moment, how the light hits the brown-spotted horse’s perfectly sculpted muscles. 

”What do I do with Dusty?” he calls suddenly, gesturing at the cat sitting calmly now and drinking in the early sunlight. 

”She does as she pleases,” Louis responds with his back still turned. ”She’s got wanderlust. Just leave her and she’ll do her thing.”

Harry stares after him, except he’s obviously _not_ staring. 

Then he stumbles back inside and shuts the door because he was _absolutely_ staring. 

Self control isn’t a strong trait in him. Such as how he had a goal of writing two thousand words a day and he’s currently at around two _hundred_. It just sits there, laptop and papers of stuff to reread and edit stacked next to it with a red pencil on top; his little empire of disappointment.

Or, like how he didn’t plan on letting Dusty back in, but finds himself opening the door for her not even _two_ minutes later. But, that’s a good one. _Good_ lack of self control.

The _bad_ kind went something like, how he let his career swallow him until the point he cocked up his last relationship… 

And, god, Liam might have found a ring, and he might just propose to Zayn. Like right now, pop it into the breakfast in bed pancakes for all he cares. Like Harry never managed to do, when he could still call Zayn his own.

Before he cheated on him. Yeah, that… whole thing. That scandal. 

He was an artist, he _is_ an artist, who Harry happened to meet during an afterparty when a one-night-stand turned into a kind of a continuous running-into-each-other due to the mingling in the same crowds, artist among artist. Smirking across the room with recognition. Coming crashing together in a kiss at the end of it. It became a never-ending kind of hook-up until they ended up deciding they should just be dating instead. Move in to save on the taxi rides. And so they did. 

Harry got wrapped up in work, though. Work things, that used to be a way of getting to see Zayn in the crowd, became separated. He wrote manically, forgot to sleep or eat. He forgot time and space. He forgot to go home, sometimes. Forgot there was a home at all to go to. 

And Harry finally figured it out, only when he saw it himself; saw him in their bed, in their apartment, coming home from a session of writing and following the noise, _that noise_ that made him freeze and fill with unease that turned to fear that turned to revulsion that turned to horror, following it like a trance and then trembling in the doorstep, staring at his boyfriend of three years wrapped up with his friend of five. Stumbling out again like he never saw, with a ringing in his ears cancelling out their calls after him. 

A ghost of himself. Just trying to breathe. He’s not sure he ever took a real breath again after that day.

And, fuck, that’s a lot. 

Hands kind of shaking now, just the memory alone bearing too much anxiety with it, he turns around in the hallway and takes a deep breath. The memories return like flashes from a horror film, almost like they’re not even real. And his breath, too, still feels constricted, still feels fabricated. Like he really just became a living-dead that day.

God, okay. _Shake it off_. He needs to just, go eat some bread, or something. Get some blood sugar stabilized, that’s totally the issue. 

And so he does. 

It’s raining when he notices the window in the roof. Luckily not because it’s raining in. Just. 

Making a loud, splattering noise, which is quite distracting. 

It’s down the hall in the upstairs area, a tell-tale rectangle of light on the floor he hadn’t really noticed before, barely there with the heavy clouds anyway. He immediately gets himself excited, quite childishly so, just to get to sit up there in it and view the miles of plain, boring fields and pastures. It will just be that slight bit more fun than viewing it from ground level. 

He’s restless as he goes waiting for the rain to stop, ends up downloading a Tetris app on his phone just for the hell of it. Tetris is good for you. Studies have shown people who’ve recently gone through trauma show better recovery if they played Tetris than-

Oh, whatever. He reads a lot online. 

_Read_ , actually. He finds himself less on social media now than before, and maybe that’s good. Maybe it’s the stress from the move still lingering, but. Probably good. Who needs constant news feeds when you’ve got Tetris? Not Harry. Surely not. 

He should probably get a hobby. 

When he’s just loaded a game, he hears a car drive by, something faint and distant but heavy, like a truck or a trailer. He searches across the rainy plains through the window in front of himself. 

He can’t see it from here, with all the maples and birches in the way. So.

Later, he’ll catch himself sitting with his feet dangling in the roof window as he watches Louis struggle to get a horse from a trailer into the barn opposite his house - finally in view - all until his kettle is screaming for him downstairs. By then his chestnut-coloured hair is wet and rather in a shade of umbra, shivering as he jumps back down - careful not to slip - and closes the window behind himself. 

Having found the one place that provides a view other than grass is an extremely exciting prospect, and he’s _so_ very thankful for the Heaven-sent invention that is steaming, hot tea as he sits down moments later with a blanket over his shoulders and a cuppa in his hands. 

_So,_ he ponders, is _that_ what you do out here? Buy horses and stuff? 

Harry blows steam from his cup, frowning. Who’s he to judge? It’s day three and he already downloaded fucking Tetris out of insane boredom, watching neighbours from the window like it’s reality TV. He’s lost the plot. 

_Plot_. He should be _writing._

It’s a few moments later when there’s a knock on the door. 

Struggling with his blanket to put away his now-empty tea cup, he finally makes it over, fumbling for the handle with blanket-hands; he doesn’t really think he has any reason to check the visitor through the window first. Low chance of strangers here, as far as he knows. He’s only just figured out a way to spy on his only one. 

He opens the door and Louis looks up, wearing a black windbreaker that’s lacking a hood zipped up to his chin, his head of hair a matted little mess of curls poking out in weird places; as if it just does that when it gets wet, as if it’s just that effortlessly adorable. ”Hey.”

”It’s raining,” Harry says immediately, frowning at Louis’ state of hair. 

”It’s stopped,” Louis corrects sagely. 

”What the fuck,” Harry retorts, intelligently, ignoring him. ”Why are you out in the rain?” And before Louis can protest, and before Harry can stop himself: ”Do you want to come in?”

Louis smiles a little, sort of awkward, or timid or something _else_ Harry already isn’t accustomed to, coming from him. Maybe that was a bit much. But it’s not like he’s inviting him to his bed he’s got littered with rose petals to dip strawberries in melted chocolate and feed each other on the white sheets. 

(Not that he’d be opposed to it, should the opportunity present itself.)

”Sorry, uh, was just thinking,” Louis starts to say, looking behind Harry into the hall. ”It’s a bit weird, when I think about how I have to get permission to go in here now.” 

Louis seems to be explaining, but Harry takes it, not as an explanation, but as further reason to knit his brows tightly together in utter confusion. 

”I used to live here,” Louis properly explains, seeing his expression. 

Harry’s face shifts into understandment then, eyebrows raising and mouth opening. ”Oh! No way?”

”Yeah. My parents lived where I live now, if you remember where. It’s all their farm.”

Harry thinks back to Dusty the cat casually demanding entrance to the house, then walking around, literally, like she owned the place. She might not have been informed she doesn’t actually live in it anymore. 

”That’s nice,” Harry mumbles with a smile, drawing the blanket tighter around himself. ”Living close. You could just like, take some food over and have lunch, whenever you want.”

Louis smiles at this, seems to be fondly reminiscing. He shrugs languidly. ”Thought it better I stick around close, you know. Just in case I’m useful.” 

”I’m sure you are. Changing tyres left and right. Rescuing stupid people like me on your quad.”

Louis’ eyes crinkle when he smiles, which is an adorable detail Harry would very much like to implement in his book for one of the characters he likes and doesn’t intend on allowing to be killed. 

”About that,” Louis says, burying his hands into the pockets of his jacket, ”I’ve finished the work I had planned for today, got Willow back from her pasture just now. She’s a horse,” he adds to Harry’s confusion and he nods in understanding. ”And, since it’s clearing up and not all that rotten outside, I was wondering if you wanted to maybe pick up on that offer to let me show you around? Or, you know, I’m up for anything, not to waste a perfectly good day.”

Harry’s a little shocked. Louis has just said _fuck you_ to being the unsocial self he claimed to be. ”That’s a pretty alright idea, actually. You also promised you’d bake with me.”

”I don’t know about _promised_ , but I’ll definitely make an effort to.”

”Nice. I’ll take it.” Harry smiles, excited again. ”Alright, well, I’m still sopping wet so- uh, because, I went out to the bin.” Harry has nothing in his bin. He also didn’t have to explain it. ”So. That’s why.” _No, it’s because he was staring at him in pouring rain_. ”But, come in, I’ll get changed.”

”Thanks. Let’s see what you’ve done with the place, then.”

Harry steps aside to let Louis step out of his wellington boots outside the door and he pads inside after him in black socks. 

”Nothing much, since I got here three days ago,” Harry says, watching Louis shrug off his windbreaker and reveal a soft-looking black and maroon jumper underneath. (He’d also like to justify, Harry’s new arrival is really a good reason to have nothing in his bin and the reason as to why he stared at his hot neighbour in the rain is due to suffering from how _cute_ he is, as he still is _now_ with how cuddly Louis looks, but he decides against mentioning this.) ”Which also means I have no ingredients for baking, should that come around. Unless you can make something with off-brand cereal. Maybe you can.”

When he chances a glance over his shoulder, Louis is blankly studying the empty kitchen cabinets. ”I do think you can, but I’m pretty sure you need something else.”

”And this other ingredient wouldn’t be milk or bread or, various frozen dishes?”

”I wouldn’t bet on it, I’m afraid, no.”

Harry disappears smiling into the bedroom, strips off his clothes and hangs them on the headboard. Very, very classy; oh the joy of living alone. He rummages around for something else and finds black jeans and a white hoodie that cuts perfectly at his hips. He doesn’t have any wellington booties, like Louis, but he has his regular tan chelsea boots still in his bag, so he grabs them both in hand each. 

When he saunters back into the kitchen, Louis has entered only slightly further and is his blue eyes are fleeting across Harry’s mostly empty table, spick and span save for his laptop, still open with his poorly written document behind the black screensaver, papers poorly organized. He seems to have only just moved on from studying the boxes piled in random places and labelled with things such as utensils and plates, glasses and cups, books, and even more books. 

Harry never did tell Louis what it is he does for a living; he never asked. He’s not sure what he’d tell him, when all he wants in life is to forget what has been, to just move past this bump in the road and get to a point in the future when everything is normal again. He’s not sure what to say when he doesn’t want anyone to know who he is or all the shit that’s associated to him as a person. 

Like he’s covered in sticky notes reading “famous couple break-up”, or “cheating scandal - what does the new mystery man have to say?”. Maybe a “where is the famous bachelor escapee Harry Styles? More at nine”.

Instead of saying anything of substance, Harry wonders what Louis made it all look like, when he apparently used to live here. Why did he move back home to his old folks? Why didn’t he leave for someplace else in the first place, rather than the distance of literally one throw of a stone away? Might that be a long throw, but seeing as he has to drive fifteen minutes to find a store, it’s a fair way of measurement. 

Why did he stay in the country? Why did Harry himself, honestly?

”Does it look much different?” Harry wonders aloud, fiddling with the drawstrings on his hoodie. 

Louis smiles, vacantly. ”Not too badly.”

He seems to be having a moment. 

Harry bites his lip, then he grabs his keys. ”So, let’s go out?”

Louis has - to maybe the surprise of no one, really - just casually parked his _horse_ outside. Maybe Harry shouldn’t say park. But he also hasn’t learned the terminology for handling horses. (He’s strongly doubting he ever will.)

It’s tied to Harry’s mailbox by the harness on its long, graceful face, eating his grass with great appreciation. 

”Oh dear, Poppy,” Louis chuckles as he walks towards the big thing. It’s not the same one as Harry saw him struggling with earlier; maybe that one is a new one, he reasons, so it’s getting acquainted with the stable and such, maybe conversing with Dusty. ”First impressions are important. Where are your manners?”

”At least I don’t have to find a grass mower,” Harry supposes with a little shrug, studying her. She’s sort of beige in colour, with dark hooves and mane, as well as a darkly faded nose and mouth. ”Must be hard to find one who will do that too.”

”Hey, that’s what your friendly neighbour is for,” Louis grins over his shoulder and puts a hand on Poppy to stroke over her side soothingly. 

”I really can’t expect you to do everything though,” Harry interjects, crossing his arms. ”I feel like a child.”

Louis waves him off. He’s grinning and squinting up into the light, looking at Poppy’s saddle with a sort of enthusiasm that, given the circumstance, can only mean mischief. ”We should teach you to ride too.”

”No,” Harry says immediately, trying to just sound skeptical but it kind of comes off fear-stricken, ”I don’t think so.”

”Yeah! Let’s. Come on, let’s pop you up here.”

Harry doesn’t move. ”Pop me up on Poppy?”

”Yes!”

”Uh.”

”Oh my god, just come over here.”

”No.” Harry shakes his head vigorously. ”No, actually, I’ve realised I’m like, _very_ busy. You know, so, I’ll just go back inside and-”

But Louis has taken the two strides back to him and curled a tattooed hand around his wrist. ”I’ll help you. Don’t you trust me? Why would I let you fall?”

”But I just met you,” Harry deadpans, staring into Louis’ strikingly blue eyes. Is this moving a bit fast? Isn’t Harry a bit too dazed for this? 

”And this is crazy?” Louis offers with a smirk. 

Harry will not be swayed by a decade old pop song. ”Yes, Louis. Maybe you’re a murderer. Maybe you want your house back.” His eyes widen ominously. ”To stack more _horses_ in.”

Louis rolls his eyes as he turns his heel and pulls Harry after himself up to Poppy the horse. 

”Here we go,” Louis sighs as Harry complies, skids along after him on still-wet grass. ”Easy does it, Harry. Just start with petting her, see how she’s not dangerous at all.” Louis guides Harry’s hand upwards cautiously and Harry puts it flat against Poppy’s side. He just can’t quite stop thinking about how Louis’ touch feels on his skin, is all. ”She’ll feel quite warm, right, which is normal. Just say hi to her. Come on now, don’t be rude. Mind your manners too.”

Harry stares up into a big dark eye on the side of the horse’s long face. She looks timid, actually. Quite serene. A little bit of mane cut into a straight fringe hangs over her forehead; very cute. ”Hello, Poppy. Lovely weather.”

”Excellent. That’s great. Is it too much?” Louis’ watching from behind but Harry keeps his eyes on Poppy’s. ”We can try a bit more another time.”

”Nah,” Harry says quietly, surprising himself. He strokes his hand tentatively across her side, and again. ”This is alright. We’re bonding now.”

Louis takes a moment to reply. When he does, Harry can tell he’s smiling. ”Great work there. She’s not so scary now, is she?”

Harry makes an indecisive sound. ”Not quite as much,” he supposes, lost in her eyes. ”Not quite.”

”Sterling.” Louis comes up next to Harry again. ”Quick lesson: never approach a horse from the rear.” He pats her neck once. ”Alright, now that you’re ready, let’s get you up in that saddle, shall we?”

Harry flinches and pulls back. Poppy does too. ”Oh shit, sorry-” Looking back at Louis, scandalised. ”My good _sir_ , I very kindly _refuse_ that offer.”

”Veto. I make the rules.” Louis looks around himself, unbothered; Harry’s heart stutters, because being bossed around is _incredibly hot_. ”This place is so empty. Do you have a chair or anything to help you up?”

”First of all, ouch, I’m offended. I just moved in and don’t have any garden stuff and-” 

_”Yes,_ I gathered as much from the information that’s been provided,” he says good-naturedly, patting Harry on the back. ”Let’s think of something else.”

Harry frowns as he studies the very size of Poppy. She’s quite the tall girl, her back about the height of Harry’s shoulders, and Harry’s quite tall himself too. It’s not a very sterling mix, really. 

”I thought this foot thing on the saddle did it,” he says, confused. ”I mean, not like it hoists you up for you, but for uh, support. No?”

Louis takes a step back, arms opened wide and eyebrows raised. ”If you want to try, be my guest.”

Harry doesn’t want to offend him, pretending he can do something he clearly can’t and which takes skill to learn. 

At least he won’t be offending him in the way Louis offends him, looking effortly attractive doing whatever he puts his mind to. 

”Right. Okay then. Here I go.”

Harry puts his hands on the saddle, takes a deep breath. He puts his foot on the little step holder, and jumps up. 

He doesn’t reach. He falls back down. 

”I swear I’m strong,” Harry immediately says, apologetically. 

”Do you need help?”

”No! Wait.”

Harry tries again, a serious expression on his face. He jumps up, pulls with his arms-

He lands on his stomach in the saddle. 

Louis doesn’t do a good job of stifling his laugh. 

”Fuck,” Harry huffs.

”Oh, I’m sorry. Are you okay? Any broken ribs? Anything that hurts?” Louis rests his hand on his ankle, still stuck on the footing and balancing with a slight tremble.

”Just my pride,” Harry explains shrilly. 

Louis chuckles. ”Alright, here we go. I’ll help.” He wraps his hand gently around Harry’s other ankle, the one that’s flying in the air, and Harry tries very hard not to imagine those hands wrapping around something else on his body. 

He also tries to ignore how he’s just realised his ass is literally just, jutting up. Could be, maybe, getting grabbed and slapped and fucked or whatever, should Louis want to. _Of course he doesn’t want to._

”We need this little leg,” Louis starts, giving a squeeze to the flying leg in question, ”to go over to the other side. Now, _how_ do we do that?”

”You’re the teacher.”

”Right I am. Should we do it back or front?”

_”What?”_

”Bring your leg up front, or swing it around back? I’ll support you. I think just swinging it right across Poppy’s back would be easiest.”

Harry nods, blood rushing to his face for one reason or another. 

( _And as for my answer for the way I heard the question_ , Harry thinks, _you should lay me on my back, and take me from the front, so I can see you. But this is fine too. This is very fine._ )

”Right,” he huffs in a strained voice, trying to regain a little sanity. ”We can try. Uhm. Now?”

”Whenever you’re ready.”

Harry tries. He steadies himself with his hands on the saddle and tangled in Poppy’s mane, palms suddenly a little clammy, as Louis helps push his leg up behind himself to swing it over Poppy’s back. She’s just patiently waiting, bless her. _However_ , Louis’ other hand is suddenly wrapping around Harry’s other leg. It’s a bit close to his _thigh_.

Harry nearly slips back off just to let him reach properly all the way up. Maybe he’d break his fucking foot in the process, but, he’s sure Louis would find a way to comfort him. 

”There you go, love!” Louis praises, and Harry really shouldn’t allow himself to react in any way to being called love, or to getting praise, or inner-thigh caresses. ”Next time you can do it yourself.”

”Uh-huh.” Harry gulps. ”Is it okay if I’m getting a little fear of heights right now?”

”I’ll catch you if you fall,” Louis amends with a smile, so gentle and warm it could end wars. It does not, however, end all the turmoil within Harry, heart fluttering wildly, throat dry. He’s happy if he doesn’t get vertigo and fall.

 _But you’ve already fallen_ , a little voice in his thoughts reminds him. _Already fallen so hard._

Louis grabs the rope connected to Poppy’s headcollar. He’s looking very amused, so Harry tries to hide how awry his own smile comes out in return. ”I can lead her around now a little, so you get used to it.”

”I’m scared,” Harry whimpers a little too truthfully.

”Don’t be, lad! Aw, look at you, you look like a professional already.”

”I choose not to believe you.”

”That you can. Honest to god, though, this is looking great.” He looks up, sees Harry’s doubtful, probably mildly terrified, expression. ”But I can come up and help you a little later, if you want,” he adds as an afterthought. He’s so nice Harry wants to _cry_ , or maybe that’s just out of fear. ”Just don’t want to exhaust her already, you know. My sweet girl.”

He pats her down her nose. Harry wants to be his _sweet boy_ , cherished with caresses and affection. ”Can you fit into the saddle?” he questions, a little loopy, but only a little. 

”I can ride bareback,” Louis shrugs. _Fuck._ Harry can’t take it anymore, nope. One more innuendo and he’s signing off. ”But let’s go have a look around.”

He makes a clicking noise and Harry grips the reins hard as Poppy starts walking. 

Harry gets, sort of, kind of, not really, a hang of it. Louis helps quite a lot. 

When Harry had gone wobbling around on top of Poppy a few rounds around his garden and a little bit down the road, Louis had asked him to scooch forward a little and move his feet. He had placed his own in the footing ( _stirrup_ , he’s been told) and hoisted himself up, just a little grunt leaving his lips as he settled behind Harry. It was so incredibly effortless, Harry had almost gasped in awe. 

Then Louis had grabbed the reins from Harry, coming close with arms around his waist and Harry had felt, _well, something_ brushing against the top of his ass. 

Then he’d gasped for real. 

He’d nearly slapped a hand to his mouth in embarrassment, face burning red. ”You’re cold,” is what he had said, _lied_ through his teeth, and fake shuddered to go with it… which had also, in retrospect, been another _very bad idea_. 

”You can warm me then,” Louis had said in a bit of a murmur, which Harry’s still thinking about. Then he’d wrapped his arms around Harry and kicked off. (But Harry had felt _him_ , and how was he _ever_ going to imagine anything else?)

The trip, after that, is nothing short of breathtaking. 

They walk around with no sense of rush. The ground is still a little wet, the smell of rain surrounding them as they step past small puddles and see the dew glint in the grass. Harry adores the way the gravel crunches underneath Poppy’s hooves, each calm step punctuated by the sound. He adores the warm softness behind him, leans into it even when Louis leans forwards. 

Harry looks out over plains, fields, rolling hills; Harry calls them mountains and gets a fond scoff from Louis. Rivers he then calls lakes, and although Louis suggests he should get down and feel how cold it is in the water, even insists one can even drink it straight because it comes right down from the mountain (and people are stupid for buying it bottled, yada yada), Harry doesn’t feel confident enough he’d be able to get back up on Poppy. Louis accepts this answer with a sweet little chuckle into the back of Harry’s hair. 

They visit sheep, calmly having a grass snack in their pasture, some lying in the shade of some birch trees and watching them as they ride past. A rabbit runs across the road as they trace their wooden fence and Harry grabs Louis’ hand by his side in shock. Louis squeezes it back almost immediately, lifts it and points out a fox darting to a gathering of trees, of lush alders and tangled juniper berry shrubs. Says she’ll have her cubs there, because they usually do. Harry lets his hand drop after a lingering moment but keeps a pink resting lightly on Louis’ wrist. Brushes over it with knuckle sometimes as they silently gaze, heart fluttering. 

He feels so incredibly much like he’s been put into a cutscene on _Bake Off_. Something so magical it shouldn’t even be real. And yet, here he is. 

The silence is one thing that really gets to him, different than the suffocating one from his empty house feeling like the walls were closing in; this silence feels like everything is just running its course and minding its own lives, no alarms, no surprises. Not just the animals but the nature too, the pouring springs and rustling leaves, the gentle breeze that makes them do so. 

The nature is just that much perfectly shaped here, like everything has a purpose. Sculpted by an artist or an author writing a fairytale. Harry gets all the more mesmerized, the further they get; how much there is of it all, and how he never had thought about it before in his life. 

When Louis finally rides them home to Harry’s front door late that afternoon, and jumps off to help Harry down, he doesn’t want the day to end. 

”Will you catch me?” Harry asks, shifting his legs to one side and sitting sideways in the saddle. He misses Louis’ warm presence already; the gentle reminder behind him he wouldn’t fall, that he wasn’t alone anymore. And maybe he wouldn’t be again, for the whole rest of his stay here. 

Louis reaches his arms up. ”Always.” He beckons him, smiling. ”Come here.”

Harry’s insides feel warm like the sunshine of the setting sun lapping their faces as they smile at each other. He goes sliding carefully off the saddle into Louis’ arms, who grabs him by the sides to ease his fall with a little huff of air leaving his lips. 

”There we go,” he murmurs, hands still resting on his hips. They’re warm and fit perfectly there, and his eyelashes are glowing golden in the light of the sunset as he looks at Harry. ”Hey, you did a great job today, did you know?” 

Harry feels a strange ache in his legs, in muscles he can hardly imagine he ever used before. The insides of his thighs feel hard and worn down, like he needs to make use of that bathtub of his now, to soak the soreness in hot water and lavender foam. 

He also feels an ache in his heart, chest tugging with longing. Longing for the same sensation of freedom to return, to feel part of something bigger. To not be stuck in his loop, of self deprecation, of the misery of not finding what’s missing; to not be captured in the struggle to find what he’s searching for. (He hasn’t known what it is, not anymore, not since the day he lost the one person he thought was his life’s purpose to spend his remaining days with.)

Maybe he’s found it, what he’s been searching for, here, of all places.

And he feels longing for Louis’ touch. His heart _burns_ with it. To brush his fringe out of his eyes and trace his chiseled cheekbone. Kiss every little freckle on his cheeks. His eyelids, his lips. His neck, his body. To show his gratitude in all the ways he can think of. To wrap him up for sleep afterwards, keep him, allow him to feel safe and warm and comfortable as they wrap up in their own cocoon of sheets and limbs. 

Holy shit, wow, Harry should probably stop thinking. 

It’s so nice though, isn’t it? The thought of Louis just, being a presence. If he would one day come over, and then not leave. 

My god, Harry never wants to leave. 

”So did you,” Harry says, and he sighs, as happily and relieved as he ever has. He takes Louis’ hands off himself and lets them linger in his own hands for a small, soaring moment before he squeezes gently, releases them to let them drop by Louis’ side. ”Thank you.”

Louis’ eyes are big, just drinking each other in. Then he waves him off. ”I bet you hated it.”

”Oh, no, yeah,” Harry snorts, feigning exasperation. ”Definitely. _Suffered_.”

He’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. 

Harry changes the setting in his book. 

Leaning back from his laptop and stretching with a crack, it’s now set in a magical, evergreen small town in the north of England, as opposed to a suburb in the south. It never entered his mind before to make a story take place in a location like this. He still needs to add a few more details, he thinks as he makes a beeline towards his cabinet to look for a snack, makes a note on his phone to drive out to West Burton before getting on the train when he’ll leave in the autumn. He’d like to make sure he has some form of accuracy and walk around a little to check it out. 

But the main thing for the story is still really the adventure, the coming of age. He has mostly non-straight and gender non-conforming characters, something he’s become quite known for. 

Everyone who reads a book of his must know he’s painfully gay himself, which is something he’s both been told and also found out, through people suddenly asking him if he has a boyfriend rather than a girlfriend, like they would when he was a bit younger than he is now. A lot of his works have sort of the themes of this too, the hiding, the shame; coming out on the other side, a much more vibrant version of yourself. 

He’s certain Louis hasn’t read a single of his books. 

He’s also fairly certain Louis, in turn, is painfully _straight._

But he’s growing more and more unsure of it with each interaction he has with him. 

Harry wakes up to a metallic, loud whirring noise outside his window the next day, clattering and infuriating. He’s about to throw hands as he stumbles across the floor with the quilt trailing behind him, legs so _sore_ and not even for good reasons like, oh, a good shag from a handsome boy, maybe on a barn floor with the _handsomest boy_ himself. Add some love bites and hand imprints and beard burns, because that’s about as good as his legs feel currently. 

He looks down and to the surprise of no one has morning wood too, groaning and tugging the blanket to wrap it back around himself. So, his brain made up the reality he longs for in the dreamworld, making sense of the body aches in the only way it knew how. (Maybe should go to sleep tugging his own hair and enclosing a hand gently around his throat and all too, huh, to make them sweeter yet.)

When he makes his way to the window, squinting, it’s Louis pushing a lawnmower his eyes come into focus on. 

He has a focused expression on his face, shadowed by a snapback, shirtless as tattoo-littered, shiny, tanned arms grip the wheel and he steers around Harry’s front garden. 

Because oh, god, Harry realises with a _start_ he had mentioned this. Only _mentioned_ that he didn’t have anyone to cut his grass, so it was superb Poppy wanted to sort it when she started to eat it; he was just being polite and bantering. He fully intended to just let it grow. 

Harry stands gaping, and when Louis makes a turn back to the house during one of his laps, he recoils, goes stumbling back to bed like his feet are tied with rope, what with how much he’s struggling with the blanket. 

He plops down on the sheets, still gawking. He never had anyone who… _did_ so much for him. To his body, for one, he thinks as he remembers his situation and grabs himself through his boxers with a sigh. But also, things like favours, the journey they shared yesterday, fixing his tyre with no obligation, before he even knew him. 

Without Harry even asking for it, Louis just does things. Like he wants to help. Just to make him happy. 

Oh god. Harry’s so in love with him.


	3. somewhere only we know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: the town Burton is basically fictional but it’s basically also West Burton if you want to google pics to get a gist of what it’s like

By the end of June, Harry’s document is still a rather tragic tale (quite literally).

 _But_ , he’s written more than he did the entirety of the beginning of the year in the mere two weeks he’s spent up here. His muse, of course: the scrunchy blue eyes and faint freckles he sees almost everyday. They’ve been handed down to his favourite character Tom, and writing his love story with the shy and uptight paperboy, Alex, is going extremely smoothly. 

Pining, pining and more pining. 

Harry decides it’s time for a break when goes to the cabinet, only to realise he’s out of snacks. He checks the fridge with no luck. Not even an emergency container of ice cream in his freezer, the fuck? That’s abusive. 

He stares out the window in defeat. This is just, _faith_. Forcing to bring them close again. 

Baking is a logical solution, right? Right! Both for cravings, and his loneliness. 

Pining, pining and _pining_ is in store. 

But Harry needs _snacks._

He decides on a whim. He jumps into the shower to wash off any remnants of being an actual hermit, some soothing toner on his face with a cotton pad to cure the feeling of his eyes being rectangles. Moisturizer that smells kind of like vanilla. Goes with the baking theme. Totally lacks any other hidden motives, like being irresistibly delicious-smelling, so Louis just _has_ to kiss his neck. Nope. Just for the baking aesthetic. 

He thinks about checking up on Niall as he decides on his outfit, but remembers normal people have a day job. He reminds himself to send a good meme if he finds one. 

He asks his mum for a picture of her dogs or her garden work instead, then drops his phone on the bed and dons a faded Pink Floyd T-shirt before he pours himself into his blue bell-bottom jeans and fastens them with a belt high up his waist. It’s snug and it’s cute and it gives him a great bum, that’s all. He receives the text back not shortly after, the aussie and the rottweiler girls curled up together and spilling out of a single basket, and it brings a big smile to his face, which he texts her a picture back of and announces he’s going to make a cake with the nice neighbour before he pockets his phone again. 

Locking the door behind himself and starting a walk down to Louis’ house, he realises it’s not a given Louis is home either. He doesn’t really know if people who tend farms have any sort of set schedule for their job; is it called a job? Self-employment? Harry is also basically a freelancer and here he is going on a walk with intents of ending up with a homemade cake, so. 

The Jeep is in the driveway when he comes over, which is a good sign. He knocks three times on the door of the yellow villa and waits hopefully for some footsteps. 

It appears that Dusty opens the door, then he realises Dusty is only sneaking out and he trails his eyes up from Louis’ socked feet in the doorway-

Grey joggers. A white T-shirt. Ruffled hair. 

_Adorable._

Harry bites his lip and smiles through it. 

”Hello,” Louis says, voice raspy with unuse, a sleepy drawl. ”Fuck me. I was napping a little bit there, you caught me. Been up at 5... ugh, anyway, woe is me and all.”

”I’m sorry,” Harry says immediately. ”Do you want to keep sleeping? I was just, well, thinking about like, _baking cake.”_

Louis gives him a once-over. Harry squirms a little under the attention. ”Baking cake,” he says flatly, but his lips quirk up. 

”Yeah! You know. Like we discussed. Uh, we can pretend it’s your breakfast?”

He tries to emphasize the words (because it’s very important) without sounding _completely_ like a lunatic (but he’s over here begging to make a cake, so). 

Louis looks up at him again and smiles. ”You’ve already convinced me, you know. I was just thinking I didn’t know you were a fan of Pink Floyd.”

Harry’s cheeks heat up a little, staring down at himself with a smile back on his face. 

Louis snorts, nods towards the inners of the house. ”Come on. I’ll find you a nice, satisfactory playlist too, Mister Classic Rock.” Harry steps inside cautiously as Louis disappears into the kitchen. ”Guess we’re even too, with you walking in on me like this, Mister Sleep in me Boxers. Eh? Giving me a heart attack,” he adds under his breath. 

Harry will just pretend he didn’t hear it. Or he might start laughing about that time Louis almost fell off his horse (seemingly from seeing Harry almost in the nude).

He can’t help but notice the emptiness of the house as he slips his boots off; or maybe he should just call it stillness. 

It’s lived in, vibrant in ways only homes can be. Old-fashioned in a sweet way. Like how there are blue-painted, fine porcelain plates lined up above the dark wood kitchen cabinets; probably a stylistic choice of a farm mother, Harry thinks with fondness. They seem to portray days of old and the landscape around them with its animals and nature. The stove is old, a black thing that runs with gas, and the table is an especially rackety old thing, chairs thin and with peeling yellow paint. He adores the kitchen island, even though that seems to be a fairly modern addition to a house that’s been left untouched for a long time. 

The kitchen is a turn to the right from where they enter, and to the left is a big open area, the lounge, with a big white sofa littered with cushions in front of the fireplace. He has bookcases, everything in dark wood, with lots of different kinds of books. So many books, Harry has to physically resist himself from going and tracing his finger along all the spines in awe and amazement, figure out how many of them he read. If his name is there. 

It wouldn’t be. He just knows it wouldn’t. 

There’s ornaments on many of the surfaces; candles or candle holders, vases, framed photographs. Everything clean of dust and with no sense of missing orderliness. There’s just, no mess around. No dirt scuffs on the floor, no clothes flinged around, no muddy boots dripping on the hall floor or, you know, any sort of animal residue. Not a trace. Harry sees the staircase indicating the upstairs area, mind, so maybe messes are reserved for the bedroom. 

Still, the house feels so tidy and safe, big and quiet, pale sun leaking in through the blinds. A place you come home to after a long day of work to just rest. 

He wonders where the rest of them are, since Louis had mentioned he’d moved back home after living in Harry’s house. He momentarily studies some photographs and tries to locate a familiar face, but his focus is broken by Louis apparently having located his phone and some portable speakers, because it’s Pink Floyd that starts playing, the familiar crackling intro of _Wish You Were Here_. It seeps into the comforting silence, sparking life into the room. 

Harry hums with delight. ”Good choice.”

”You know it. I’m just a great host like that. So what else do you like?”

Harry crosses his arm, standing comfortable in the gentle acoustic noise. ”Oh, a lot of rock from this era. Like 70’s, 80’s.” 

”So would you be that kind of person who says they’re born in the wrong era?”

”No, not really. I don’t want less social rights. That would kind of suck,” Harry says sheepishly. ”But for modern, uhm, I can’t really pick out a band. I like indie rock in general I guess.”

”Should have guessed as much. And so do I. Let’s say, Vampire Weekend?”

”Oh, absolutely.”

Louis nods approvingly. ”Arctic Monkeys?”

”Hell yes.”

He sputters with surprise. ”Enthusiastic too! We love that.” 

”Music is important,” Harry reasons, smiling big. ”To me, anyway. I don’t know if that’s normal, I mean I think I know more random trivia than what I remember from school in total.”

”Alright, so we’re 100% compatible.” Louis tugs open the fridge. ”Right. What do we need, chef?”

Harry snorts, padding over to him on socked feet. ”I’m not a chef, that’s for food. You can be chef. I’ll be the incredible Baker Boy.”

”Superhero too? My, my, you just keep surprising.” Louis says to Harry with another impressed once-over that seems to sort of, linger, right where his trousers are naturally a little tight. It sends a shiver up his spine, being looked at in such a way. ”Your baked goods better be out of this world then.”

”Like Superman himself,” Harry assures him and steps close behind him. He can smell his shampoo, hair soft. Cozy warmth. He imagines putting his hand under his shirt and pulling his back to his chest, chin on his shoulder, swaying to the slow music and kissing his neck. ”We need milk, butter and eggs.”

In another life, Harry could also then probably pull back to spank Louis’ ass before kissing him on the cheek, then turn away to continue the task. Might have also said fuck it all, sat himself on the counter and pulled him to himself, legs around his waist, clothes dropping off. 

In this one, he just goes straight for raiding his cabinets. 

They eat the cake from the metallic mold with a spoon each, leaning over the lovely kitchen island. Harry feels so at home in Louis’ kitchen, licking frosting off the back of the spoon, trying to look untethered as Louis does the same. 

”Fuck, _Harry,”_ he rasps a few bites in, after a few very pleased little noises, and it becomes a very difficult task for Harry to look untethered and like his breath didn’t just hitch. _You should keep saying my name like that,_ he thinks, sucking frosting flavour off his bottom lip. ”This is so good. I can only make bread and shit. When did you learn how to bake like this anyway?”

”During college,” Harry explains with a grin, taking an uneven breath to settle back down. ”Baking cakes by day. Studying linguistics by night. Eating instant noodles sometime in between day and night.” He crosses his feet behind himself. ”You know, Superhero activities. Like that.”

Louis grins. ”That’s college, I guess. I never went, myself. Nobody had such expectations of me.” 

”They only expected you to be a rugged stay-at-home-cowboy?” Harry says and oh no, he _said that_.

Louis clears his throat a little, caught off guard. ”I’m not a cowboy, Harry. Well, suppose I do have cows. And I suppose I do stay home.” He grins, looks up at him again. ”Maybe you were onto something, when you said my only friends are cows.”

Harry blushes a little, stomach seizing with cold regret. ”You shouldn’t remember my rude moments. Can I erase them?” His eyebrows knit together. _”Did_ you have a lot of friends, growing up?” he asks as the thought strikes him. ”I mean, no offense.”

”None taken,” Louis says with amusement. 

”I meant, because you live so far off. Obviously.”

He grins wider. ”I _did_ go to school, you know. Not totally dim.” He shrugs easily. ”But yeah, holidays could be quite lonely. In the summer I would go help out my parents, tend to the cattle. At the time we had some fields with wheat too, and loading hay into the barn, that shit. Could steal a ride into Burton too but during winter, I stayed home a lot. Reading and stuff.”

Harry hums in understanding, with a big undertone of interest. ”You have a lot of books.”

”Yeah, yeah. At the time I read some comics too, like about Batman and Robin - I’m very old - but also tried to be intellectual and read books. Harry Potter, all that. Which, yeah. I’m just old. ”

Harry resists mentioning he’s been compared to Rowling; resists asking what his favourite books are, if he read anything by a _Styles_. If his eyes would just light up suddenly with all the recognition.

The speakers are playing _I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing_ by Aerosmith now, Louis humming around and bobbing his head a little. Harry bites his bottom lip thoughtfully, studying Louis’ face as his eyelashes cast gentle shadows down his cheekbones. ”How old are you, really?”

”32.”

Harry raises his eyebrows in surprise. ”You don’t look old. Or seem old.” He furrows his brow. ”32 _isn’t_ old.”

”That’s a good save, Harry,” Louis says through a chuckle, pointing at him with his spoon. ”Bless your heart. Really.”

”I think it’s young,” Harry says earnestly. ”What are you doing on a farm at 32?”

Louis scowls a little. ”Hey now, backtrack. How old are _you_ then?”

”I’m 26.”

”Jesus.” Louis actually sighs, like this is? Shocking? Infuriating? ”Well then. Same question. Aren’t you youths meant to be living the city life?”

Harry smiles a tight-lipped smile, pokes around at his cake. He never told Louis anything. Well, he never asked him to until now. 

His stomach hurts with the guilt. That he never told him why he’s here? That he’s a writer, who’s awfully bad at it, all creativity drained until he ultimately found a fairytale land come to life? Or guilt over that he’s leaving? That he’s ultimately going to have to? 

He imagines it now, leaving, this. All this. Rolling hills and bright blue eyes. Warm touches, warm smiles. 

”I needed to work out some stuff,” he says finally, poking at the cake some more with deep interest. 

Louis nods with deep understanding. Harry has to leave out the one detail in that sentence, albeit an enormous one, why his life got fucked over in the first place. How, ever since he got so consumed in work and glory this very mid-winter, he’s had one bad day after the other, until he one day walked into his home to find his boyfriend of three years fucking someone else in their bed. He needs to work some stuff out, sure. He still does. 

He doesn’t say, this is a good reason why he couldn’t bear to stay. Couldn’t be in the same house haunted by old ghosts of bittersweet memories. 

And he doesn’t say, I’m leaving in the autumn again. In November, I’ll have to leave you in the cold. I’ll be gone like the summer. 

What he says is, ”I’m so happy to be here.”

He must sound so genuine because Louis just blinks at him at first. ”I am too,” he says, voice quiet and sweet. So genuine, too. 

Harry’s heart hurts so bad he has to leave his spoon in the mold of the half-destroyed cake and push away from the kitchen island, feeling a little sick. 

_”’Cause even when I dream of you, the sweetest dream would never do,”_ Aerosmith wails as he tries to shake off the sudden vertigo. _”I’d still miss you, baby; and I don’t want to miss a thing...”_

“I write, mostly,” Harry says, in between chewing on his bottom lip.

Louis cocks an eyebrow. ”Have I read anything you’ve written, by chance?” he asks as Harry starts to walk around the kitchen, nearly just doing that same old anxious pacing he got accustomed to do around his apartment at home, just because. (When you walk in on a sight like he did it tends to fuck you up a little bit, sometimes in unexpected ways.) ”I mean, are you- do you write articles? Or like, published? Wait, sorry, maybe that’s a sore spot.”

The nagging thought of how bloody perfect Louis is turns his heart into a thumping mess; thumps hard from all that tender, genuine affection. He doesn’t judge him. He doesn’t pry. It’s just a bonus point he’s ridiculously attractive too, at this point. The real winner is that gentle, soft kindness, like a caress. 

”Yeah, no. A few.” Harry looks over some notes on the fridge as he considers how to choose his words; buy this, do that. He smiles, poking at a banana magnet. ”I’ll let you read the draft I’m working on. You can be the first one to. Sorry, you’ll have to suffer.”

”I’ll die a true knight’s death,” Louis muses, leaning back to look over his shoulder. ”But _please_ , don’t read my grocery list. I only buy unhealthy shit and I saw your whole grain cereal and bread and I feel so _extremely_ mortified.”

Harry giggles, feeling a little lighter at once. Instead he wanders up to the wall where a dozen or so framed pictures hang. It’s a very homely thing to do, keeping pictures like this. He stands looking closely at a sepia-toned wedding photo, clearly grandparents, a little smile on his lips. 

”Cute,” he comments.

”Yeah,” Louis says and abandons his spoon too, standing. ”Grandma and grandpa. Mum’s. They lived out here too, I spent a lot of time there, or _here_ , as a kid. Before they willed us this house.” He huffs a laugh. ”Where I get my strikingly good looks from, right?”

Harry hums, cannot confirm nor deny. 

”Will your parents mind that I’m here?” he asks instead, finding a photo taken in this very backyard, a woman with big hair, a little curly as 80’s often went, and a small child in her arms. 

Louis’ got his hair cut like a mushroom in the picture, the poor choice of placing a bowl on a child’s head to cut the hair around it; poor in both senses of the word, Harry knows. He has a dark blue denim jacket that’s a little too big for a, he supposes, 2-year-old. It’s so adorable, it tugs on Harry’s heart. Just a little boy on his family farm so far away from everything else.

Louis is quiet for a moment, before he hears a slightly humourless chuckle. 

”Sorry to let you down, Harry,” he says from behind him, ”but my parents have been gone for a few years now.”

Harry spins around, finding Louis’ face. He looks up at him from having presumably been looking down at his feet. 

”What? Are you okay?” is the first thing Harry can think of to say. 

Louis smiles then, a little less completely void of joy. ” _Fine_ , love, yes. As I said, it’s been years. 10 and 5, I think, by now. And I’m managing pretty alright now, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but thank you.”

Harry swallows dryly, still trying to wrap his head around it. He wraps his arms around himself, as if this will help, or maybe just protect him from the harsh reality. ”I just- I imagined- I’m sorry. I really just thought you lived at home, with them. Did I imagine you said this?”

”Maybe I’ve confused you,” Louis supposes, sitting down on one of the yellow chairs at the table. ”I moved back here, to the house you’re at now, when Dad died. It was sudden, so, we didn’t really have the time to make plans. So I just did.” 

He fiddles with his thumbs, eyes downcast. He seems to hesitate as if Harry will interrupt. Maybe he wants him to. But Harry doesn’t. 

”I was living up in Burton at the time,” he continues gently. ”I had uh, a little loft on my own above the shop there, which I helped to tend. Good to be in town- well, you probably wouldn’t call it a _town_ , but it was a pretty big deal to me,” he adds in a hush. He looks up for a moment and smiles at Harry, knowingly. ”But then, after that happened, Mum couldn’t exactly run a _farm_ on her own. She wasn’t too old but it’s still heavy work by yourself.” He shrugs a shoulder. ”And so I moved back out here, after the lady who lived here at the time decided to give it up for me; she was that close with my parents.”

Harry could ask, is it true you’re close and know one another in the countryside? But he nods, let Louis speak. The heaviness of the subject drains any thoughts in his head. 

”We would say, don’t let your yearnings get ahead of your earnings,” Louis seems to quote. ”We combined finances and that, had a system, dreamed big but we were realistic, now that we were one man down. So me and Mum, we had it good for a while I guess. I mean yeah, we _really_ had it good. We had it all.”

Harry hears the pain in his voice, behind layers of trying to be strong. ”I can only imagine,” he says quietly. ”Dream team.”

”Yeah,” Louis says in a breath, almost a chuckle. ”I would get up at fuck o’clock to feed the cows, you know, she’d take milk and make butter and stuff - she was very crafty like that, incredible. She could make jam from berries she picked in the forest, I tried to learn and keep up the best I could, but I reckon I could never keep up. And then we’d go in the old Jeep to sell it at the market. I have some chickens still, but at the time we had much more, selling the eggs. You big city people are _obsessed_ with it,” he says, looking up again with a glint in his eyes, ”all that free-range and organic shit.”

Harry smiles. ”I’m guilty.”

Louis smiles back up at him. He casts his eyes down again, resting upon his hands fiddling on the table. ”We had it good, could make a living. It was thanks to all her talent and dedication. Preservation. Then one day, she didn’t wake up.” Harry’s heart drops. ”That’s when I moved back in here, this house. Decided I was going to be one hell of a farmer, the best they could have ever asked for, you know?”

”And- and you _can?_ ” Harry says, because he doesn’t want his first question to be _and you can afford that?_ As if he’s questioning his decision, and as if money is the biggest issue here. 

Louis shrugs a shoulder. ”I had to sell a lot of the cattle. More than half. The tractors and all that equipment I didn’t know shit about how to use, I wouldn’t have had the time to do it all anyway I guess. I gave some money to get by, and I mean, the house is paid off, I have their savings… or had. I don’t use a lot of electricity now, in the summer. Shit like that. Did you know you can save petrol by riding a horse?” He doesn’t wait for Harry’s response, but still looks up at him intently. ”Now you do.”

Harry feels exposed, but he’s sure Louis does too. He feels like he’s just seen his soul. For Harry’s eyes, he’s shown his whole heart. And it seems, it beats for this place. 

It becomes so clear to Harry, suddenly, overbearingly washing over him how obvious it all is now. The way Louis adores this, all of this. The sadness in his voice when Harry hinted at his strangeness for doing so. 

This is where he grew up, his flesh and blood, past and present. A place he fought so hard for. This is Home. 

_God_. He can’t fathom how long he’s been so lonely, and still he loves it just the same. 

“Everyone is going through something they don’t talk about,” Harry says, a little breathless. ”So, thank you, for telling me about you. That means a lot to me.” 

Fuck, he just wants to sit himself in Louis’ lap, tangle his hands in his adorably sleep-ruffled hair and _kiss_ him. Kiss all the pain away and find the passion that burns so hot, that allowed him to keep living, building his dream all around him, even when life put sticks in his wheels. 

Louis smiles, leaning back in his chair. He looks a little exhausted, eyes weary, and Harry wants to stroke his cheek, kiss his heavy eyelids and murmur that he’ll help him to bed. Cuddle up with him to keep harm away until he drifts to sleep. ”Thank you, too.”

 _But I didn’t tell you everything_ , he thinks, heart a heavy, painful stone in his chest, weighing down his whole body. _I barely said anything._

Louis heaves a sigh, rubbing at his eye with his knuckle. ”It’s nice to have someone like you,” he concludes, and Harry bites his lip. ”You’re a good friend, did you know?”

It makes Harry’s heart sear with pain, because he really is a friend, probably Louis’ only at this point. And Louis is Harry’s for as long as he’s here, alone. 

It would be devastating to ruin it. 

But it would be equally devastating to not get an outlet for everything he feels. 

What happens instead is, Harry has low self control. It’s _No. 1 Party Anthem_ that plays when suddenly he finds himself climbing into Louis’ lap, one leg swinging over his two. Louis looks up with startled eyes but nonetheless puts his hands on Harry’s hips. 

Harry wraps his arms around his shoulders, and puts his cheek to the side of his feathery soft hair. ”I’m sorry life has been so unfair to you,” he mumbles and closes his eyes. 

Louis puts his arms around Harry and pulls him close without a word, just heaves a shaky sigh, like saying _yeah_. Just, _yeah_ , filled with both defeat and acceptance. So they sit there, breathing together, calm settling over them. 

And, if he feels a twitch in Louis’ joggers, which ignites a warm spark within Harry, he does his best to ignore it. It’s a tender moment. Loving. He might just cherish it forever. 

Also go home and jerk off about it; the vision of Louis tenting in those joggers, hard and aching for Harry; whispering into his hair how he wants him until they would struggle his pants down and Harry would ride him, nice and slow to the beats of Arctic Monkeys playing AM, start to finish. 

But whatever. 

Harry feels a little ashamed.

Or a lot, really; that he was throwing a fit over being oh so lonely only _a day_ into his stay. That he was grumpy and moody and sad and most of all, spoiled, and he’d _chosen_ this. Louis had been involuntarily alone for years, and he’d lost it all. 

Maybe this is part of the reason Harry just can’t seem to tell him. 

About, _everything_ , really. It all weighs so much more heavy now. Book deals, manager meetings, sponsorships, articles… Friends, family, his whole life in London... As if all this out here isn’t important. As if Harry really is just ungrateful and spoiled. 

_Don’t let your yearnings get in the way of your earnings_ , he’d said. A motto they lived by. And Harry had led a life of plenty. 

Before he’d settled down with Zayn, there had been guys like him before, on different occasions. Another artist, another designer, another manager, another bar keeper at the event that bored him to death until they’d disappeared into the janitor’s office, that sort of thing. He had earned money, he had spent it. He had let yearnings get ahead of earnings. He had fought for it, too; but what made him more deserving of security and safety than Louis?

It was materialistic, a lot of it. It was insomnia, hangovers, exhaustion. It was not knowing who to trust. He cut his hair off before leaving to let go of memories of it being held back by hands he could no longer hold, in a caress from fingers that made him purr, or as he leaned over the toilet, throwing up from a bad mix of alcohol or anxiety. Insomnia and, if he could sleep, nightmares. All his Greatest Hits. 

No, it was the worst time of his life. What he feels right now, is the most he’s felt in months. He hasn’t had a panic attack since he got here. He hasn’t thought about numbing the pain in self-destructive ways, because there hasn’t been any pain to be numbed. 

For the first time in forever, his chest feels lifted, his head feels cleared. 

And he could sway the date a few days, he’s sure. Absolutely can, but he’s still got to be back on familiar city grounds on November 20th. His ticket is booked for 15th. The schedule, it’s been made. 

He has a contract. The bloody unbreakable contract, etched like a spell of dark magic, painfully encapsulating his whole existence, binding him to a cursed living. 

His book will be published next spring. That’s not in the contract, but it’s booked with the publisher. Someone is already on their toes ready to start designing the cover. Then it’s book tours, signings, interviews. There’s talk of another movie. Talk of this book he’s meant to be writing having the same potential.

And… He’s sounding an awful lot like his manager. 

Putting a tray of scones into the oven one particularly early Sunday morning (for him), he plots ways to be the Superhero they discussed he was. An assassin of the night, one that... anonymously sends money. Ah, yes, maybe some crime fighting thrown in there too of course (or just like, reporting politically incorrect trolls on social media, which he already does), but the money thing is the main part. 

Would be heaps of it, because God knows Harry doesn’t need all that he has, but Louis. Louis _really_ does. 

Because if he can’t be here, then at least he has to help in any way that he can. He wouldn’t sleep at night if he didn’t, or couldn’t. Louis deserves to have all the perfect equipment and all the best help. He should be able to buy cattle back, have lots of chickens or whatever else he wants. 

He speeddials Niall as he crouches in front of the oven, staring into the yellow light through the darkened glass door as his baby buns rise to victory.

“You surely _do_ know I have a job,” Niall drawls in an utterly posh voice as he picks up on the second ring, and Harry can just imagine how he spins on his computer chair in his fancy trousers and tucked in shirt. He’s adorable.

“Yes, darling”, Harry answers, equally posh, or at least tries to. He twirls his hair, grown long once again from the summer its healing qualities. “But I’m lonely. It’s not right.”

“Aw, farmer boy left you alone for a second?”

Harry breathes out heavily. For one second he’s off his mind, and the next he’s back, occupying the entire space. His lips quirk up involuntarily.

“You’re grinning, aren’t you?”

Harry huffs, offended. “Just… _smiling_ , a little. Don’t have to come here and gloat in my _misery_ , do you?”

“But it’s just so much fun,” Niall reasons and Harry hears his chair creak, spinning back to his desk. Hears him tap a pencil against the keyboard on his laptop. “Come on. When will you get married? I’ve been waiting for years to be a groom.”

“Oh, assuming I’ll be picking you then?”

Niall could be saying, _well, who else would you pick? You’ve been a reclusive grump for months and nobody even bothers to text you anymore, and currently hardly anyone you’re supposed to be friends with even wonders where you’ve gone. Because they all sided with Zayn, and Zayn is getting married, and you’re all up there in lonesome town doing everything but what you’re supposed to._

Niall doesn’t, though. Niall is a nice person.

“Hey, surely I’m first on the waiting list!” he scoffs. “I want that nice rustic wedding, come on. I’m dreaming of coming in like a barefoot Hobbit, a wee little deer baby carrying the rings. You can’t take that away from me. I also expect sheep in the pews.”

“You should come visit and you’ll see the sheep in advance,” Harry muses. 

He misses him terribly. Niall should know Harry doesn’t just want him to complain about his problems to, or to spy on his ex friend and boyfriend on social media. He wants to take him on a hike and let him see the dales, the clear air, the freedom. 

“Hey, you’re not so dim after all. If I could get the time off work I’d be chilling with you all the time.”

The buns have risen, gradually turning golden. Harry picks out jam from the kitchen with his phone propped on his shoulder. “Wouldn’t it be nice?” Harry muses.

He picks out the hot tray while Niall discusses local sports, because for some reason he’s very invested. It’s not something that Harry could ever quite keep up with. He hums approvingly and sighs annoyedly at appropriate places whilst he puts jam on one steaming hot scone. Meanwhile, he imagines having a little basket of homemade eggs next to him on the counter. Wholesome. He’d quite like that. 

When they hang up he becomes instantly restless with thoughts whirring in his head. He paces the kitchen, chewing vigorously, incredibly delicious but _god_ , he’s going stir crazy. 

For being the end of June the weather is fairly forgiving. He’s spent quite some time inside because of how hot it’s gotten, temperature rising to 25 degrees celsius on most days, brain a melted mess as he does what he usually does to make the days pass and make sense, which usually has them consisting of going between discussing life with Niall over the phone, and groaning over the keyboard. And baking scones, supposedly.

He takes another bite and scowls at his laptop, folded up on his table. Nah, mate. Not today. 

Harry stuffs his mouth with another warm scone before he walks upstairs into his bedroom and throws open his wardrobe doors. He _blatantly_ refuses to sulk anymore. He’s here now, after all. Not leaving yet. Better make the most of it. 

He starts walking towards Louis in a black shirt with embroidered red roses and shorts, of all things unholy. Gym shorts. It makes no sense but it’s hot and it’s summer and they make his bum look cute as hell, so that’s all, move along. On his arms hangs a bag with the remainder of the scones plus his little jar of apricot jam. He’s not entirely sure if presenting store-bought to a farmer is plain offensive, but he’ll roll with it as it comes. It’s a crime he’s willing to serve time for, because it’s fucking delicious. 

When he comes up to the lone house, it seems Louis has left with the Jeep, driveway deserted with fresh tracks in the ground. 

Well, Harry has his trainers on. He can accept a hike. 

What starts as just following the tracks down the road turns into tracking them through an entire field, almost stumbling and falling several times with his little bag and it takes a good 30 minutes before he finally finds the Jeep parked at the corner of a forest, empty. 

Then he’s in trouble. 

”Louis?” Harry tries to call out, clearly to no avail, but he kind of figured as much already. 

There’s no footsteps, and yet, the little opening in the forest he suddenly spots pulls him towards it somehow, like it just seems to be the perfect place to walk. 

He wrestles past some shrubs, draws a deep breath at the earthy scents of sun-warm soil and birches. The forest opens up again, and there he is. 

Louis sits calmly watching some cows graze the tall green grass. There’s rolling hills behind him, where he’s facing, and Harry can’t think of how to make his presence known. He’s breathless, not just from walking. Knees weak, not just from the scenery. 

Louis is sitting in a field in bloom, beige linen shirt over a white vest and drinking in the sun. It’s all so beautiful, exuding a calm Harry has never known. 

He thinks about how his own life is always so _much_. Check that notification immediately. Remember to send that email. He’s tried yoga, of course. Meditation, like all the other overworked people, coming to class with an iced coffee and feeling a pang at having to turn his phone off per the leader’s instruction. It didn’t do much for him, honestly; too stressed to grasp the concept. 

Meanwhile, Louis is sitting in the very description of calm. 

Harry doesn’t want to scare him, so he takes a few tentative steps out into the dale, sun coming into view to drown face in light. He shields his eyes with his hand and smirks. ”I had a feeling I’d find you with your best friends again.”

Louis turns around, not all too startled, just surprised. He smiles, immediately eased by seeing it’s just Harry. _Just_ Harry. 

And he wants to be more than just _that_. A tiny detail. Perhaps a disturbance in his schedule. 

Once again he’s plagued with the thought of waking up next to him on a sunny morning. Bedroom too cold, pulling him back down under the covers, silencing his protests with kisses. 

”Hello,” Louis chirps, smile bright over his face. Harry wants to kiss it over and over again. ”I have to check on them everyday. Rules.” He drifts his eyes down his body. ”Brought work?”

”This? Snacks for you,” Harry explains and hands him the bag before sitting down next to him in the grass. If his thoughts somehow show on his face, or in the way he takes his seat fairly close, Louis must take no notice. Maybe he doesn’t mind. Instead he crosses his legs and pulls the bag into his lap to peer inside. ”Why are they so far out?”

”Scones!” Louis exclaims instead, delight mixed with the surprise.

Harry wouldn’t be able to resist smiling widely even if he tried. He shrugs. ”Hard workers need a nutritious meal.”

”Fuck yeah, I’m starved.” Louis pulls one out and parts it, fumbling with the jam on the butter knife Harry dropped in. He has a little red sunburn on his collarbone and Harry wants to peck it with a soft kiss, to heal it. ”Their pastures are quite big,” he starts to answer, busying himself with applying jam liberally. ”Takes a while to find them sometimes. I figured they’d be in the forest in the shade, but they must have come out this way. You know, for some food.”

”Do they never run out?” Harry asks as Louis screws the lid back onto the jam. He takes his first big bite as Harry watches with hopeful eyes. ”Good?”

” _So_ good.” Louis shakes his head like he can’t believe it. ”I’ll give you some cherry jam once they’re in season. Grow it in my yard. You have to keep baking for me _forever_.” He chews some more and then creases his brow. ”Did you mean run out like, escape?”

”Well, _that_ too. But I mean run out of food? You know. Grass?”

”Yeah,” Louis says, brushing crumbs off his lap and nodding. ”They eat up alright, but they get moved between two pastures. It’s quite a mission to plan my ordeals. You know, when to move, how I’m gonna manage, whatever else. Fixing fences. Looking out for threatening wildlife, all that.”

”Shit,” Harry whispers. ”I never thought about it.”

Louis shrugs half-heartedly. ”I’m an organized mess,” he says simply, like it’s a catchphrase, and looks up at Harry for a moment. The sky never looked so blue as when Harry gets lost in Louis’ eyes. ”Then I have my bulls in another, further away. Them boys can be quite the distraction for the ladies. But I put them together in July, so they can calve in spring.”

Harry’s eyes go wide. ”Calves!” he squeals. 

Louis hums as he licks jam off his thumb, then grabs another scone and bites into it plain. In a similar fashion as to how Harry struggles with resisting the biggest, most genuine smiles with Louis, he can’t help how his stomach twists up with _arousal_. He feels a twitch in his pants at how Louis’ eyes flutter shut, lashes lit up in the sun and looking so long, gentle stubble on that perfect jaw tensing up as he bites. 

Harry wants him to nibble at his _thigh_. Wants to see those lashes flutter as he spreads Harry’s legs and dives down between them. 

They’re all alone out here, nobody to judge them. Nobody to interrupt. 

If only... _If only._

”They’re a lot of work,” Louis says finally. ”But _very_ cute. Very worth it.”

Harry is _also very cute_ , he thinks with a frown as he looks ahead at the munching cows. _And_ very worth it. Louis is _also_ very worth it. Worth risking it all for. Right?

The view of the rolling hills coaxes the thought of him suddenly, startlingly clear. 

”You ever seen _Brokeback Mountain?”_

Louis startles a little, but it might have just been how suddenly the question jumped out at him. The silence is so all-consuming, his voice might have cut through it like a knife. A very annoying knife. Like the one covered in jam on the bottom of Harry’s bag, except Harry’s not covered in anything but clothes (not yet). 

”Yes?” Louis answers, cautious, like whatever he’ll say next might just hurt. 

Harry doesn’t understand why it would, but in his peripheral he can see Louis’ ears go a shade redder, popping the last crumbling scone bit into his mouth. It’s _painfully_ adorable, but also steals some air out of Harry for quite some other reasons. 

”You ever had a situation like-? I mean. Uh. This sounds weird now.” Harry shakes his head, drawing a hand through his sun-bleached hair. He’s feeling loopy and a little frustrated. Or a lot. _My god he’s just so ridiculously horny_. ”I’m just distracted by how quiet and empty it is here. Like, these hills. It’s amazing. And then I uh, started thinking about Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar, all alone up on that quiet, empty mountain, you know.”

Harry suddenly _hears_ himself in his mindless rambling. Like he didn’t feel when he put his toe in the water how cold it was and now he’s jumped right into a hole in the ice. Except he’s not rattling his teeth and shaking; he feels hot all over, most of the warmth pooling in his stomach, or lower. 

But Louis doesn’t get up and run. He doesn’t even question why Harry is seemingly comparing them to two men deep in love in a movie, _thank god,_ just clears his throat a little and wipes off his palms. 

”It really is beautiful, right?” he says in a murmur, quite dreamy. 

Harry looks over at him, gold light on his face. Louis meets his eyes for a second before they both shy away, looking ahead again. _Oh no._ Harry feels _electricity_ in the air. 

Wouldn’t it be easy? Just, rolling right over. Straddling Louis, kissing him, touching. Fuck, if he’d say no Harry would stop immediately, obviously. He just has to _know_. 

He just has to know, because he can’t take feeling hot and high-strung constantly. He can’t take Louis looking at him in the ways he does. 

”And no,” Louis continues in his raspy voice, chuckles a little. ”To answer your question. I, you know. No. I never met anyone like you.”

”Like what?” Harry asks immediately. He rolls over, and somehow he ends up with his head in Louis’ lap. Louis looks down at him with eyes big with surprise, and Harry bats his eyelashes. ”Shamelessly gay?”

It’s meant as just being a little self deprecating. A little fun. But, Louis.

Louis makes a little noise. ”Not quite what I… meant, but. God.” Harry’s heart starts beating significantly harder. ”That’s good to know. Uhm. Very good.”

Oh, fuck it all. He can’t _take_ it. 

He surges up, finding Louis’ lips and kisses him hard. His hand comes up behind his head, fingers curling into the little locks that he’s let grow, drinks in the muffled but _pleased_ sound that spills from Louis’ lips. 

Louis kisses him back; oh god, he’s _kissing him._ He fumbles for Harry’s shirt and tugs on it until he’s scrambling into Louis’ lap, a mess of long limbs and wants and needs and _aches_ straddling his hips as they keep on kissing. 

When Harry moves his body just _so,_ he suddenly can _feel_ Louis beneath himself, his dick against his thigh, thick and hardening. It makes his head spin, stomach twisting and heart fluttering. It must be dangerous to be so fucking turned on by someone. It must. 

Harry pulls back with a gasp of breath, hands on Louis’ collar. ”I think this is a bad idea.”

Louis blinks at him, like he can’t believe he’s real. Harry also can’t believe he’s suddenly living in his greatest daydream. ”It might be,” Louis rasps, wets his lips, ”but please don’t stop.”

Harry kisses him hard again. He strips the linen shirt off Louis’ tan shoulders, running a hand up the white vest on his torso. He’s throbbing with the want, shifts around to feel him some more. 

They’re hard against each other, and Harry bites back whatever sound is threatening to leave. ”God, Louis,” he whispers thickly, leans in to kiss his neck. 

He loves how Louis cranes his neck to give him all the more access. He _adores_ how he emits little moans and whimpers, like he’s been aching for this to happen all along, just as badly as Harry. 

Louis pulls Harry with him on top of himself as he falls back into the grass. Tangled legs, wet mouths, Louis’ hands travel below his shirt with nails gently gliding across Harry’s back, and Harry cannot help but stutter a moan against his lips. 

He realises then this might be moving faster than he could have anticipated and his heart jolts in his chest. 

Their legs are so perfectly wrapped around each other, and they keep up their passion even as they slow their movements into more softness. Just hoping that by some sort of otherworldly power that Louis understands, how Harry could go on - _really,_ really wants to - but he doesn’t want to spoil it all at once. 

Every touch feels like magic. It would be quite overwhelming. 

They kiss slowly then, but tenderly. Harry has never felt quite so much emotions emitted through a kiss. He’s already far past overwhelmed when at last they pull back, pupils wide at each other. Just catching their breaths during a delicate moment of silence. 

”Hi,” Louis breathes, such a sweet and innocent and adorable and _happy_ smile on his lips, Harry just _has_ to kiss him again. 

He needs to chill out, though. Calm the fuck down. He pulls back very involuntarily after another kiss through which they smile, could be _groaning in frustration_ the whole way back into sitting position if there wasn’t a risk it would _very likely_ spark life into their actions again. 

”Hi,” Harry answers, hands on Louis’ hips beneath the linen, softness against the back of his hands, softness under his palms. ”I quite liked that.”

”I did too,” Louis agrees, fiddles with the hem of Harry’s shorts. ”I’ve been hoping you would.”

”So have I,” Harry sighs, ”the whole goddamn _time_. Didn’t you see? Couldn’t you take a hint? I mean oh my god.”

”I didn’t think— I thought I was obvious.” Louis’ brows knit together, but a smile still plays on his face. ”I felt like I touched you all the time and I just, wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to scare you away.”

Harry looks down at his face. _How could you be scared of love?_ He doesn’t say it aloud, just lets it echo in his head. _I’m not scared of love._ (That’s a good one for his book.)

”I’m not scared,” he says, shortens it, but Louis might just understand anyway. He runs his hands up Harry’s back and Harry closes his eyes for a moment, revels in the feeling of a soft touch. The healing power it carries. 

”That’s good. Then I won’t be either.” He kisses Harry’s nose so he scrunches it up and opens his eyes again. Louis is smiling. He’s like the sun itself. ”Do you want to go home?”

”I guess, yeah,” Harry says, already picking stray grass from off his knees. How hard he still is beneath his shorts is only _embarrassing_ and nothing he wants to discuss, thanks. 

”Good. I can drive you this time.”

They walk hand in hand. Harry can’t stop secretly smiling. 

Harry stumbles only a few times on his own two untrustworthy legs, as Louis chuckles, promises once he’ll carry him if he so had to. And it’s not even all the fault of Harry’s legs (but a lot of it is because he’s like Bambi on ice most of the time), or the unruly ground with random clutters of grass rudely sticking up… but maybe _slightly_ more so the giddy feeling inside him, kind of disorienting, kind of dazzling. The feeling of warmth from outside as well as from within; sunlight on his skin and a warm hand in his. A beautiful boy by his side supplying it. 

”What are you doing today?” Louis asks him once they’ve sat themselves in the jeep, either fastening their seat belt or jiggling with the keys. 

Harry shrugs non-committedly and peers out the window, a warmth still in his cheeks, a feeling like he’s soaring in his chest. He’s so bloody happy. ”It’s a good day for staying inside, innit?”

He really just wants to go back to the whole kissing thing, right now immediately. 

He looks at Louis as he smirks, looks down at his hand gripping the gear shift. ”That so?” Louis inquires. 

Harry thinks some wild thoughts when he sees his hand curl around the stick. ”Yeah. That is so.”

”Then,” Louis starts, moving his hand with deliberate ease to the wheel, ”it’s also a good day to help your friendly neighbour do some gardening, perhaps. Don’t you think?”

Harry can only nod. 

What he doesn’t know until two hours later, is that he’s really just agreed to sell his soul to soil under his nails and dirt stains on his knees. 

Louis, however, doesn’t seem to find a care in the world, picking weeds amongst his tall tomato plants growing with great vitality against the wall behind his house, all while humming a little melody, _which is agonizingly cute_ , but Harry still wants to just kind of fall over, and preferably into his bed and not onto the one made of dirt. 

It’s turned into a warm day too, heat creeping in now like someone opened a big oven turned up to 200 rather than 20. Harry would much rather be inside baking a cake again, now that he thinks about it, but maybe it was just the oven metaphor. 

He thinks about kissing Louis too. In the kitchen, pressed to the counter. On his lap, in the chair, like when he just held him. In the field, just a few hours ago. 

His lips, how he felt. How he made him feel. 

Harry pokes a plant with his tiny shovel. Is it a good time to pick it up again? Not the- not the _plant_. Like. Pick up the whole _kissing_ thing. He doesn’t want dirt inside his clothes too, though, but god, _oh_ god, he really just wants to kiss him again. 

He stands up and puts the shovel into the ground where he’s been mindlessly poking it, without really catching the root of all the weeds he’s attempted to pull up, because it’s difficult. He brushes soil off his reddened knees below the hem of his shorts, then brushes his hands together and turns around to Louis, caring for his plants like he’s caring for the sick. He’s an angel. Harry just isn’t a fan of gardening, as it turns out. 

Louis looks over his shoulder like he can tell Harry’s looking - which sends something electricity through Harry’s stomach, stupid as it is; he still has such a huge crush on him and it’s, just, _stupid_ \- and he smiles and gets up too, to join him with a hand full of small tomatoes in his palm.

“Are you having fun?” Louis asks before popping one into his mouth casually.

“Oh, totally,” Harry says flatly and tries not to display the dirt under his nail when he reaches for a tomato himself, like he’s been digging with his fingers and not an actual gardening tool, like a child. Maybe he should start wearing nail polish again. “Yeah, this is super fun. No, really, I love dirt.”

He bites into the tomato and its juices are so sweet, so different than what he’d buy in the store. Warm from the sun, firm and flavourful. The surprise is extremely obvious on his face when his eyebrows shoot up and he stares at Louis’ outstretched hand.

“And what about now?” Louis asks with an arched brow and a sly smirk.

“ _Mm!_ That’s- that was unexpected, it’s actually great.” Harry steals another tomato. “Yum as fuck. Huh! What do you do with them to make them so sweet?”

Louis shrugs. “Sunlight.” He gestures around. “Love. I don’t know. You saw I have no magic going on.”

“I believe you,” Harry says but with narrowed eyes and suspiciously pursed lips. He eats the other one and makes another delighted noise. “Ah. Beautiful. Delicious. Do you reckon it’s time for a break?”

”Tired already?”

Harry scoffs. ”Me? Never. I’ve got endurance. Super strength. Let me rephrase.” He takes the last tomato. ”Do you want some tea, dear?”

Louis smiles and looks expectantly at Harry. “Will you make another cake?”

“Of tomatoes?” He shrugs and eats it too. ”Don’t think it’s possible, but with your secret magic... maybe so.”

”Maybe so,” Louis echoes, nodding. ”Well, make yourself comfortable. Kettle’s in the kitchen, tea’s in the cupboard above. But please, _do_ wash your hands. No offense; you’re filthy.”

Harry resists kicking him in the shin when he grins at him. 

Louis’ house is even more empty and quiet without his big presence filling it out, his large and colourful spirit like a song echoing through the rooms. It doesn’t feel eerie without him, just like something is missing. It’s like the house knows it too. 

Harry locates some black tea while the water boils and thinks about whether he knows how Louis likes it. A little act of kindness, knowing how he likes to drink his tea… well that would be just about the _least_ he could do. Louis has opened up a new world for him, after all. He’s opened up his home and fed him sun-warm, firm and sweet tomatoes from his yard. 

Harry smiles probably quite goofily at the kettle, lost in thought about it all. Thoughts so kind and light. It’s a fair change from the typical stress he’d almost become accustomed to. So forgiving. 

He heaves a deep, calming sigh just to feel it run through him, just the sound of the kettle and him. 

That’s when his phone rings. Confusion turns into a cold feeling in his stomach when he realises, Niall wouldn’t be available at this hour. No, but who else would it be? 

His manager. Of course. LA is calling with Jeff’s name written across the display. Harry sighs in a much more uptight way than before, rubs his eye furiously to sober up from his somber state before he swipes his thumb across the screen and picks the phone up to his ear. “Yeah, hello?”

“Hey, man”, Jeff speaks through the other end. Harry glances out the window, trying to spot Louis. He should _not_ be finding out about this. For a moment, Harry almost forgot about his past life himself. Or, you know, his _actual_ life. Not this fairytale he’s been living. “I didn’t get your drafts yet. Just checking in to see if everything is alright.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, nodding and so full of lies, lies, lies. “It’s going great. Just uhm, having a little break, I guess.”

“Fine, fine.” Jeff clicks a pen impatiently. Harry wonders if he does it on purpose, for Harry to hear he’s obviously not too fond of him right now. Book deal. Movie. Unbreakable contract. “How are you doing out there? You haven’t been sending me much updates.”

This is it. Jeff is the _face_ of Harry’s slowly diminishing mental health, and his never-fully-healing exhaustion syndrome. The _mother_ of his panic attacks. Or at least the one who reminds him of why he started to have them.

“No, I uh. I’ve just been hanging out. Looking at the area and stuff. Horses.”

Harry knows Jeff’s face, how his mouth has turned into a straight line. “Horses?”

“Yeah. Lots of horses here, it’s nice.”

Harry stares at his distorted reflection in the shiny metal of the kettle, vacant green eyes staring back. Like a ghost of himself. Taking deeper and deeper breaths. Reality always comes back to haunt him.

“Listen, Harry,” Jeff says with a sigh and Harry stills. “I won’t bother you much longer. Just try to get those drafts in for me, alright, matey? I would prefer not to be disappointed. I know you’ve expressed having a lot on your mind, but that’s why you’re out there, no?”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “That is so.”

“Out in nowhere with no distractions. Great, isn’t it? Well, I’m here in my office and I’ve got a meeting coming up, so just call me if anything should be needed, alright?”

Harry nods even though he can’t see him. “Alright. Thanks.”

“Alright, Harry. Get to work now. Bye-bye.”

The call ends and Harry looks down at his home screen, exhales a deep breath. Maybe he should have his phone permanently on flight mode. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he even _could_ be randomly reached, but it’s not like he fell off everyone’s radar just because he doesn’t have a connection half the time. 

He pockets his phone and takes the kettle off the stove. Wonders what he would have said, if Louis had been there. _When_ will he tell him? When will he have the guts to expose his wounds? Oh you know, I’m just a bestselling author, but you don’t know anything about half of it, and my name is _definitely_ not Harry Nicks. I’m a mess trying to escape this life and I’m devastatingly in love with you. Accept me with all my flaws or I might just drive into the lake. 

And maybe he would understand, because Louis seems to be broken too, seems to want to escape the past pain as much as he does. But no words seem to be good enough to describe it. Harry doesn’t want anyone to know, even though at the same time, he wants to tell Louis everything.

When Louis toes inside after him, it almost appears as if he thinks he’s trespassing. Harry has to turn around to see him standing there, on his own doorstep, uncertain and so beautiful that Harry’s instantly filled with such warmth. There he is, a sunshine in the darkest days, and nothing else really matters. 

”I just thought-” Louis shakes his head to erase the thought. He smiles a little to himself, a little bit of the happiness Harry feels within himself mirrored on him. ”Thought maybe you left. Dunno why.”

He enters the kitchen with normal bouts of noise and movement, but still with no alarms, no surprises. He puts a handful more of tomatoes into a wicker basket and places it on the table. Harry looks at it for a moment. 

”Why would I leave?” Harry asks him, holding up the kettle. ”I’m making you tea.”

Louis smiles again, but disappears into the now opened cupboard beside Harry to reach for some cups so that his shirt rides up. He’s only a little bit shorter than Harry but he still finds this agonizingly adorable, standing on his toes to find a perfect cup for himself and Harry. 

”I’m very glad that keeps you here, then,” Louis says eventually and closes the cupboard. “Who called?”

He hands Harry a thin, fine cup with a blue flowery pattern, and he clenches it a little bit too hard in his hand. “Oh. Just uh, back home.”

Louis raises a brow. “Home?”

“I mean.” Harry inwardly curses with every single word he can think of. Home is here, he reminds himself; home is the lonely house down the road. “Like hometown, you know. Where I was at before.” He deflects his eyes despite Louis looking concerned, raises the little cup instead. “Sorry.”

“Hey, no problem,” Louis assures with a shrug. “There’s no need to talk about it. At least you don’t deflect trauma with jokes, like me, but I do by the way take that as a compliment because what I hear is that I have a great sense of humour. So, you know.”

“Right,” Harry snorts, turning towards the kettle again. If Louis wonders more, he doesn’t ask. Harry’s pained expression must explain enough. Let’s not talk about it. Not right now. “So. How do you like to have it?”

”With milk and no sugar, of course,” Louis replies without hesitation. ”And you?”

”Anything is fine”, he replies, secretly holding the colder back of his hand against his burning cheek. “Plain, or with honey.”

He almost makes the joke that he could have meant it as Louis being his Honey. Tea is always fabulous when shared with Honey. When Louis doesn’t reply, only starts to scavenge for the jar after a little nod, it’s almost as if he resisted saying it too. 

”Do you always have it like that?” Harry asks instead, both to break the silence, and to be sure for future reference. 

”Why, obviously. Otherwise I think I’d spontaneously combust.”

Harry raises his eyebrows, impressed. ”The universe wouldn’t implode?”

”That too.” Louis puts a spoon of golden honey into Harry’s cup before Harry pours the water, into his own and then into Louis’. ”Well then, I think I’ll make it myself just to be sure you’re not conspiring for this to happen, now.”

Harry puts the kettle down and is about to object when Louis reaches beside him, trying to get to a little jar of what must be the sugar. But, instead.

Instead he just kind of wraps himself all around Harry in the progress. Harry turns towards him, like a flower turning to the sun, and suddenly they’re stood pressed together. 

Louis looks up from beneath his fringe, and after a moment of thought, staring at each other’s lips as Harry’s body grows hot - they lunge forward and kiss. 

Harry ends up backed into the counter, Louis kissing him fiercely, hands coming to the sides of his face. Harry pulls him in by his waist, kissing back keenly and letting little sounds escape, just for the hell of it. Dreaming already of how this is really real life and he’ll be the one kissing him again and again; taste the bitter tea and chase it with the sugar on his lips. 

The hint of desperation is almost overwhelming. Like kissing is the only thing to do. 

And maybe it is, because for a breathless moment, all bad thoughts escape Harry’s mind as they hold each other. He fills with longing, desire, like a teenager again and filled with all these wants and needs. All the hurt diminishing and sweetness filling its slot. Louis’ body soft and warm beneath his fingertips, tracing the linen, the curve of his waist. His heart beating hard against his. 

And maybe it’s the only thing to do because, after all, they’re alone out here. Just each other with no spectating eyes. Free of judgement. 

And yet somehow Harry feels, if he was placed in a crowd of people and with a dozen of choices, he would still choose Louis. He would still be the one getting his knees weak, pressed to a kitchen counter, tea steaming beside them. 

They drift apart with their lips still open, still wanting more. Chasing that feeling of grateful oblivion. Like... _safety._ Like this is what being safe really feels like. In their own cocoon, free from pain. In the arms of someone so gentle. 

They lean their foreheads together and breathe deeply, arms around each other.

”This is quite nice,” Harry murmurs just to say anything, eyes still closed. 

Louis hum in agreement. Harry’s feeling content like a cat in sunlight but still, a greedy, beastly thing inside him craves more. He squeezes Louis’ shirt in his hand where he’s holding him. 

”I don’t want to be alone anymore,” Louis rasps then, so honest and so sudden, Harry snaps his eyes open again.

He pulls back to look at him, but Louis’ eyes stay downcast. Hair has fallen in his eyes, which Harry wants to brush away. 

He does. It forces a smile on Louis’ face, but it falters shakily, stabbing at Harry’s heart. Like this was the most honest he’s ever been in his life. 

”I won’t— I mean.” Harry fumbles for words he doesn’t know how to express, ways to make his feelings into cohesive English. His heart throbs with so many emotions all at once. ”I can stay with you? In your house? I mean, _can_ I?”

”Please, yes.” Louis is just nodding, meeting his eyes so relieved. He slumps forward with ease and bumps his forehead against Harry’s chest. Harry’s heart swells beneath its ribcage, beating hard. ”Fuck. I want you. I just want _this_.”

Harry blinks at the room, his heart feeling like a ship on stormy waves. Anxiety knots in his stomach again but he’s also filled with so much love, so much it can’t be contained, no less could he explain it. 

”I won’t leave you, Louis,” Harry promises like it’s the truest thing ever spoken, stroking Louis’ soft hair. He smiles despite himself, hand cradling the back of his head, keeping him securely in place. ”You’ll never have to be alone.”

”Thank you,” Louis whispers, and Harry’s heart really physically aches. 

He lifts Louis’ face softly, kisses his forehead. His cheeks. The rolling tears and then his lips. 

”I’ll stay with you from now on,” he murmurs and Louis nods, kissing him again. 

Has he just lied?

Harry wakes up in Louis’ bed. 

Light falls in through the slits in the blind, pale but warming, that of an early morning, and when he reaches out beside him like on instinct, the space beside him is nothing but tangled sheets. 

He scrambles up in an almost sitting position, squints at the light or maybe more like the lack thereof. It’s just in time to see Louis pull the T-shirt he slept in over his head, and Harry just falls back into his pillow in response. It’s all that smooth, sun tanned skin. It _does_ things to him. Even when half-awake and delirious, it does. 

Louis turns back at the sound, new shirt for the day clutched in his hand. Harry sees tattoos he’s never seen from his first class seat propped against his pillow. A swirly text across his chest, a number inked thickly onto one of his pecs. Memories flood back from last night. They never did anything more than kiss, of course not, Louis even changed into the shirt now discarded in another room with pyjamas pants obligatory. 

But, slipping under soft covers into Louis’ bed, in Louis’ room, to hold his hand as they went soundly to sleep... it kind of just meant everything to him. It still means everything. 

And now, without the shades of dusk, the dawn brings new life into the still bedroom. Promises of the day leaking through the blinds. The sheets are soft, smells of Louis, but Louis is all the way over there, and Harry just reaches his arms out in utter frustration, coaxing him closer again. 

Harry really flew around the cuckoo’s nest. 

Louis smiles, hair a mess, eyes still squinty from sleep. So beautiful it’s ethereal. He drops the shirt back into the dresser and rounds the bed, back to where he got up from. He climbs back, into Harry’s arms, pulling the covers up like a blanket of warmth as he goes. 

”I didn’t want to wake you,” he whispers into the stillness, voice raspy from unuse. 

Harry noses into his neck as they wrap their arms around one another. It comes so natural, that they just want to touch each other. And Harry bloody loves to cuddle. 

”You’re all cold now,” Harry whines, wrapping a leg around him too. That’s a punishment for leaving. He may never do so again. ”Why’d you go?”

”It’s time to feed my girls and boys.”

”What time is it?”

”I don’t want to say.”

Harry slaps his shoulder half-heartedly. ”God, come on. Just lay it on me.”

Louis hesitates for another moment. It appears he’s biting his lip. ”It’s 6.”

Harry groans, excessivelymanically. Then he sighs. ”Ta. Alright. Fine, yeah, I’m okay.”

”You sure?”

”No. Absolutely not, you prick.”

They giggle, although Harry only joins after hearing Louis do so, because this is a crime. He woke up at 6 without an alarm? _Please._

Louis kisses Harry’s forehead once they begin to quiet down. Harry cuddles closer and sighs contently. Then they lay there in the calm and quiet, the soft warmth. In their own cocoon. Blanket burrito. 

”I’m so happy you’re here,” Louis murmurs into Harry’s hair.

Harry has never quite felt so happy, he’s sure of it. Not for many years, maybe not in his whole life, and he’s definitely never been so bloody lucky. ”You sure?”

”Of course. What do you mean?” Louis holds him only tighter. ”It’s like, god. It’s just like you were an angel sent for me. I’ve been alone for so long, and yet here you came along. You know?”

”Yeah,” Harry whispers, tracing a pattern on his bare shoulder under the covers. Wants nothing more than to discover all of his body, kiss all of his skin. ”I know. I feel the same.”

”You do?” 

Louis pulls back to look at him, like he tries to tell if he’s joking. 

”Of course,” Harry echoes. Never laughs. Never turns away. Just wants so badly for Louis to know it’s for real. How his heart aches with it. How much he already loves him. 

Louis’ eyes flicker half-lidded between his eyes and lips. Then he kisses him, Harry kissing back. Legs entangling under the warm sheets. A little sigh. 

This. This must be truly Heaven. Harry really wouldn’t mind waking up like this everyday. 

Thing is, well. Harry hasn’t shagged in a good, maybe, like, 6 months. This is a problem, because he might just come in _literally 3 seconds_ if Louis as much as touches him, and he really doesn’t want to. 

What he _wants_ to do, really _really_ wants to, is maybe ride him nice and slow. Let Louis fuck his face, hands in his hair, telling him how good he’s making him feel. Thrusting his hips, tightening his fist, head lolling back with a moan...

My god, all he wants is to _touch_ him. He just doesn’t want it to finish in _3 fucking seconds_. (And considering Louis’ own circumstances, he’s not sure he has much of a choice himself, either.)

Well. Cheers. 

When Louis stops to study him again, Harry strokes his shoulder and smiles. ”Wanna get up now?” he asks quietly.

”Fuck. Guess I have to, right?” 

”I guess. Sorry for your loss... of warmth and comfort.”

Louis kisses him again and Harry smiles. ”Wanna get up too? Or sleep some more?”

”I think you already know the answer to that one.”

”Got it.” Louis swings his legs out of bed and Harry immediately draws the duvet around himself. He returns to the shirt discarded moments before. ”Hey, after I’m done,” he pulls it over his head with a huff, ”it should be about, like 10 maybe. Is that better for you to wake up and all?”

”Suppose so,” Harry sighs as he stretches back out over the soft sheets. He yawns, lets his eyes drift shut and sinks down into the pillow, and down and down he goes. A soft dark veil encloses him in comforting comfort. 

”So I was thinking,” Louis says from far away, Harry’s eyelids too heavy, mind too numbed, ”we could teach you to ride Willow. By yourself and that.”

”Mm.” Harry buries his face deeper into the pillow, sounds drifting off. ”Good.”

It’s silent for a beat. Then somewhere in the world Louis says, with a gentle smile: ”Goodnight, my love.”


	4. simplify

When Harry wakes up 5 hours later, he realises with a start what his sleep-deprived self really agreed to do. 

Or maybe it’s with a start because Louis is pushing the door open with his hip and sauntering inside the quiet bedroom, and when Harry has rubbed the sleep from his eyes he notices the tray in his hands, the smell of pancakes and freshly brewed coffee wafting through the air. 

Harry feels eternal bliss. ”Oh my god,” he moans, hands on his cheeks as he watches Louis balance it over, the most smug look on his face. 

”Yeah. I’m amazing.” He puts it on Harry’s awaiting lap once he’s scooched up against the headboard. ”I know.”

”God, thank you so much,” Harry continues in total awe. There’s even a little sauce pot for syrup! ”I must be dreaming. I don’t even know what to say.”

”Most important meal of the day,” Louis shrugs, but really, he’s totally _so_ pleased with himself. Harry’s very quite pleased too, _obviously_. Like, if Louis’ love language is going to be gifts and gestures, Harry will very happily continue to accept breakfast surprises. 

Louis smiles as he keeps walking to the window, but then he unforgivingly quickly begins to roll the blackening curtains up. Like, excuse you! Harry has to resist literally cowering and hissing like a vampire. Instead he just covers his eyes and whines pathetically. 

”Aw, I’m very sorry and all that,” Louis chastises, ”but it is in fact very late in the day and we just have _so_ much to do.” He turns around and claps his hands twice. ”Chop, chop. Eat and grow.”

Harry picks up his cutlery and sulks in silence. ”I _am_ grown. I’m taller than you.”

”Oh, remind me some more, why don’t you?”

Harry barks a laugh, something so genuine, something he could have been embarrassed about allowing to slip out if it wasn’t for the fact that this is Louis. It’s not an embarrassing noise, he realises as he cuts a generous first bite for himself. It’s a sound of happiness. Happiness can’t be ugly. 

He stuffs the shame away by drowning it in the sweet sensation of a pancake drizzled with maple syrup and all melts to perfect bliss. 

”You know what I should remind you of in return?” Louis asks, sinking back down on the sheets next to Harry. 

”Hmm?” Harry inquires around a mouthful. 

”Think a little.”

”Mm.” Harry tilts his head from side to side. ”Mm-mm,” he announces, which means no. Error. Zero thoughts. 

Louis leans in to kiss his cheek. ”We’re going horseback riding.” He turns it to a whisper. ”And you, my sweet, will be on your own horse.”

Harry drops the fork loudly, and Louis laughs delightfully.

”So, you know, when I-”

”If you’re going to say you weren’t fully conscious when you agreed to do this, I will choose to not believe you.”

Harry looks between Louis, to the horse in front of him, brow furrowed. His gaze lands on her for a moment, standing in Louis’s stable and munching some hay, conveying with his eyes a _can you believe this?_ She munches on. She cannot believe. She doesn’t seem to really be phased by anything to be honest. Then he looks at Louis. 

”But you knew what I was about to say, just now,” he says. ”So you already knew I was falling asleep.”

”Of course I do. I saw it.” Louis waves him off. ”I just choose not to believe it right now because I can. I’m a free spirit.”

”Free spirit. Right.” Harry clicks his tongue. ”Are you quite aware of how much of a dick you are at times?”

”Not really, no,” Louis beams. 

”God, how do you get away with it?”

”Talent.” He puts his hand on the horse’s nose, strokes down her long face. ”Can we move on?”

”But, I don’t even know this one. Where’s Poppy?”

”Poppy is my lady, pal.” Louis swats his arm lightly. ”And of course you do. This is Willow. A filly. I got her the other week, you’ll remember.” Harry does remember shamelessly spying on him through his ceiling window, and all that. ”She’s all acquainted now, she’s very chill. Me and Poppy though, we go way back. Better not get used to her because she’s all mine.”

”Aw, drats. I planned to ask for her hoof in marriage.”

”As her father, I simply won’t allow it.” They both grin and Louis bumps his shoulder. ”Get over it.”

”Right, well.” Harry sighs. He strokes tentatively down Willow’s blaze, down her soft, dark nose. He’s never quite felt anything as soft as a horse nose and the feeling alone makes him smile. ”Let’s rock’n’roll, then.”

”Please never say that. But alright.” Louis rubs his hands together anticipatingly. ”Do you think you have an idea of how to mount a horse now?”

Harry breathes out heavily through his nose and withdraws his hand. He seems to remember a lot of touching involved in that whole process. To be honest, it’s most of what he remembers. ”You know what,” he says, ”why don’t you just show me again?”

So Louis does. After placing a headcollar on Willow, and hoisting a saddle onto her back, he leads Harry to her side (alerting him horses will most definitely kick you if you frighten them so to keep talking to let her know where he is, and Harry’s very quite good at rambling). He directs him to put his foot in the stirrup and jump up at the same time he swings his leg around over her back. Same procedure, really; Harry’s just a mess. A mess in yesterday’s shorts and a jumper borrowed from Louis, which smells incredibly nice and he kind of just wants to relish in it, but most importantly, shorts make for skin on skin contact.

And Louis holds his other thigh gently when he does, so that he almost gets vertigo for this reason alone. 

With Harry in the saddle clutching with his thighs for dear life, reminiscing the awful muscle aches from last time, Louis leads her outside by a lead rope. After letting Harry take the reins he returns inside, and comes trotting back out straddling Willow. 

”So you didn’t fall,” he acknowledges. ”This is good.”

”We’ve got all day.”

”Yeah, yeah. Better plan it out, make it stylish. I’ll hope it’s softly into a haystack. Any demands where to go?”

”Not really.”

”I have a suggestion, then,” Louis says and clicks his heels. ”Let’s visit the forest. You’ll love it.”

Thing is, as it turns out, Harry _hates_ the forest. 

Well, see, Harry doesn’t like being far from home with no reception, no on to call on for help. He convinces himself slowly, but surely, a compulsive thought grinding its way into his consciousness that hurting yourself was only one thing out of very unfortunate many that could definitely go awry. Maybe he’d twist his ankle on a stupid root. But then, he could just jump home on the other leg, right? Getting lost was another thing, then, one he didn’t have a solution for exactly. But either way, he’s with Louis. Louis probably knows every shortcut home. 

Animals, however. Oh god, his heart starts hammering if he just considers it. And then he starts obsessively listing the possibilities for his inevitable death. Death by sharp, sharp teeth. A wolf, a bear. Death by being trampled, by a moose- Did they have moose out here? Were stags also dangerous? Or deer?

 _”Oh my god,”_ Harry yelps suddenly, jerking to the side and staring out into the mess of alternately needles and leaves. ”I just thought I heard something.”

”Like what?” Louis says, with a kind of amusement Harry has a hard time relating to, currently.

”Like, I don’t know. A _snarl_. Maybe like something dragging over twigs. Like, _big!”_

They’d tied Willow and Poppy by the edge of the tall trees, decided on a stroll so they could have a rest and eat some grass. Right now it’s just all the more reason to be afraid though, because surely nobody would think to attack a hundreds-of-pounds heavy horse, and even if they did he could have jumped up and rode away. Assuming he’d gotten any skills at all from the preceding lesson, and not just achy limbs. 

”Nothing is out here,” Louis assures him for the umpteenth time, chuckling. Harry kind of has to glare. ”Maybe you could meet like, a fox. You’ve seen those bastards. Don’t step on its tail or anything, and it will be more scared of you than you are of it.” He looks at Harry’s unconvinced expression. ”I’m _sure_ of it.”

”What about like,” Harry presses into Louis’ side as they walk, nearly rocking him off his balance, _”badgers?”_

”Badgers? Never seen one. _However_ ,” he continues with a big, gleeful grin that Harry notices when he snaps his head towards him, ”they don’t see too good in daylight, they’re almost blind. So if you come quite close you can scare or aggravate them. And they don’t know you’re a big scary human like foxes do, right, when they can’t _see_. I hear their teeth are sharp as needles.”

_”What?”_

Seering in Harry’s legs comes the pure _adrenaline_ , pumping into his body so that he twists his head in fear in the direction of every _butterfly_ , every damn _ant_ in his peripheral. Everytime some grass sways blissfully in the wind he grows convinced in half a second’s time it’s a _big animal_ coming through it to _hunt_ him. He holds his hand against his chest and feels his heart against his palm.

Louis barks a laugh, pats Harry on the shoulder so he jumps in surprise. ”I’m messing with you. Oh, darling! Honestly! I mean, all _true_ facts, so write that down. But just useless trivia. You won’t see one. I’ve never in my _life_ seen one.”

All of a sudden, a sharp noise is just _right there_ and Harry falls aside, screaming. 

A red little robin flies up from the ground and settles in a tree above, confused. 

Louis is doubled over laughing for a while as Harry scowls at him from the forest floor, but his pupils still feel blown wide, mind alert. He helps himself off the ground then goes to whack Louis’ arm. 

”That’s _not funny_ ,” he emphasizes. ”Fucking shit oh my fucking god, I can’t _take_ this. Why am I even this scared?”

”Instinct,” Louis supplies, shaking sense into himself with a sigh. ”But you’re just _so_ uptight, my love. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made it worse. I just can’t help it.” He’s laughing; he’s totally _not sorry at all_. ”I’m sorry.”

Harry rolls his eyes at his half-assed apologies. He still feels about ready to run, wherever he may need to, from whoever he may need to run from. He’s so not in the mood for a nice little forest stroll anymore. 

He turns his boot and starts walking again so Louis follows suit, still chuckling a little, although clearly trying not to. Louis stuffs his hands inside his jean pockets and sighs. 

Harry thinks about that pleased little sigh a bit too intently, and his mind wanders miles. Thinks about the way he keeps wanting to move around, ways of distraction. 

Thinks about Louis’ pretty lips as he purses them thoughtfully.

”I have an idea,” Harry says suddenly, eyes wide on Louis. ”But don’t laugh.”

Louis prompts him by raising his eyebrow, then turns his head forward again. ”To go home?” he asks in a bored voice. 

”We can have sex,” Harry says breathlessly, grabbing the sleeve of Louis’ hoodie. Louis halts. ”I’m- _fuck_. I have so much energy and, now I can’t stop imagining it.”

They stop and face each other, both staring like they can’t believe the other person.   
“I know it’s stupid. It’s- like, mental. But I just.” He fiddles with Louis’ sleeve, lip coming caught between his teeth. Louis makes a little noise and his eyes come back up to his. “Now I just really want it.” 

”God, Harry,” Louis whispers, looking all kinds of dazed. 

”Please,” Harry whispers back. 

Louis doesn’t need much convincing. He’s already put his hands on each side of Harry’s face, one sliding through his locks to the back of his head. He backs him up against a tree trunk, Harry’s feet actually cooperating and allowing himself to be pressed up against it, Louis slotting between his legs. 

Harry kisses him, kisses him, deeper and more fiercely, like kissing is air he needs to not collapse, like touching him is an anchor to sanity. 

Louis arches against him, Harry’s hands escaping under the hem of his shirt. He touches all the golden skin he adores, all he could have only dreamt of doing. When Louis pulls away, he can’t help the noise of disappointment, but it changes into a gasp when Louis ends up dropping to his knees.

Better yet, how he flicks his eyes up to keep looking at him. Those piercing blue eyes that alone work to make Harry’s stomach feel hot with arousal, twisting up and hips almost bucking forward as soon as his fingers ghost over the drawstrings on his shorts, his dick tenting against the fabric.

“Is this okay?” Louis asks in a murmur, voice low but still that raspy lightness, making Harry’s head spin. His eyes are on him, intent, long lashes casting shades over his chiseled cheekbones.

Harry nods, wets his lips, his whole body saying _yes, yes, yes_. Of course, absolutely, god that’s fucking fantastic, keep fucking going. And he’s not even _doing_ anything. Just painstakingly slow, light fingers, his lips wet and parted, and Harry could be whining for how much he wants him. Could be begging on his knees if Louis wasn’t already at it, swiping with his tongue against his palm before Harry lets his eyes flutter shut, his head falling back against the trunk with a small whimper.

Louis finally has his hand wrapping around him, and Harry bites his lip, eyebrows knitting together. His nails are digging into the tree behind him when he feels heat around him again, Louis standing up in front of him and he immediately wraps his arms around him instead, kissing him, again and again. Louis starts jerking him off to slick sounds, wet with precome and the slickness in his hand, and he feels just absolutely breathless.

Harry lets his hands trace around Louis’ body until he finds his zipper himself, fiddling desperately until he gets to slide his hand down the front of his boxers. Louis locks up and draws a sharp breath, coming out in a moan against Harry’s lips. It makes his dick twitch as Harry just wants him even more, wants so much he keeps rubbing his palm against him, might be rough but he just _craves_ any contact at all, just needs to keep touching.

Louis pulls away from Harry to join his hand, but he takes himself out of his boxers and oh, _oh_. He takes Harry’s dick again and wraps his thumb around himself, which. Which presses their dicks together hotly, and then he’s jerking his hand.

And then his big hand is just sliding along their lengths and getting them both off at the same time. Hot and hard and wet against each other. 

Harry’s head falls back again and Louis takes the chance to nibble at the crook of his neck, Harry moaning incomprehensibly in reply because _fuck_. Louis knows exactly what he wants when he jerks them off faster, focusing on Harry, twisting around his head as if he _knows_ how it makes him go crazy.

“Fuck,” Louis groans against his neck, breathless like himself.

“I think I’m gonna come,” Harry blurts out because it’s all he can think about. Hot, wet, so filthy and arousing and…

“No,” Louis whines, which is so uncharacteristically desperate and needy. “Not yet. I want to- just.”

He lets them both go and Harry huffs a frustrated breath, the edging orgasm relieving him from its tight grip. Louis drops to his knees in front of him again and Harry gapes. Will he-? _Oh._ Harry’s limp hands slip from his body as he kneels down out of his reach, rests his hand in Louis’ hair instead, curling it lightly. 

Louis hums, taking Harry’s cock in his hand and licking around the head, swirling his tongue. He’s, _god_. He’s just _brilliant_ , like _cherishing_ him, and Harry’s just a proper mess of weak knees and shallow breaths. Louis takes him down further, sinking down as far as he can go then back up as he’s twisting his hands around his shaft, Harry’s hand curling into his hair as he tries not to buck his hips. The edges of his vision are whiting out, _so_ close to coming he can’t even form words.

Harry wants to taste him too, feel the weight and the warmth, lick the salty taste and watch his face become etched with pleasure. He wants it so bad, and Louis tongue slides over him so expertly until Harry releases the breath he didn’t quite realise he was holding with a whine; he releases all the rest of his tension and spills hotly over Louis’ tongue, over his fingers where he grips the base of his cock, hips stuttering and thighs quivering. 

A whisper slips from Harry’s lips, in a state of only half-consciousness and his mind just circling around _Louis, Louis, Louis_ on loop. _“Fuck, I love you.”_

He immediately realises what he just said, tensing up. He also realises his cheeks go quite red… unless they already were. And to be fair they probably were. 

To make up for it though, he silences Louis with a kiss as soon as he stands up on wobbly knees. Louis draws a sharp breath but kisses him back nonetheless as Harry tucks himself back into his boxers, the want and the need still there, the immense urge to still touch him. He immediately directs him around to press his back against the tree trunk.

He pulls his shirt up and kisses down his tummy as he sinks down to his knees, Louis gasping both surprised and aroused. “Shit,” he wheezes and Harry could grin, if he wasn’t on a very important mission.

Harry pulls him out of his pants and immediately takes him into his mouth, doesn’t take a lot of swirling his tongue and pumping his hand until Louis is coming too, a celestial sight of his head thrown back and his hands in Harry’s hair. Harry swallows and licks, sighs with content when Louis starts to catch his breath again.

But he loves him. He loves him so much.

And when Harry stands back up, Louis looks so beautiful, almost shy. Face gleaming and glowing, the sun behind him making him look like a saint, positioned against the tree like Harry should just about start to worship him. He adores him, nonetheless. 

“What did you say, earlier?” he asks as he circles his arms around Harry and pulls him in close.

Harry immediately flushes again, shakes his head so that curls of hair tumble over his face. He doesn’t know if he should repeat. It’s not untrue, it couldn’t be after all that they’ve shared. It was just a spur of the moment thing and so genuine and raw, he doesn’t know quite _how_ to repeat.

“When exactly?” Harry says, sounding too shy for his own liking. 

“It’s okay,” Louis assures him quietly, a gentle smile on his face, holding Harry’s cheek. He leans in to kiss his collarbone softly and Harry closes his eyes. “I think I heard you.” Harry’s heart flutters. “You know I feel the same.”

Harry bunches Louis’ shirt in his hands as they stand and hold each other. Listens to the once-frightening sounds of the forest, now just background noises, passing events. The sun sets slowly, and he fucking loves him.

When they return home under a bright orange sky, Dusty is sitting on Louis’ porch, licking her paw peacefully. She doesn’t even look up when they trot over to the barn on their respective horses and Harry has to laugh, how oblivious she is to it all. Oblivious to how he feels about as good as a bag of melted sweets, useless and soft, but made up of pure joy. A dopey smile forever on his face because he loves Louis to the moon and back, and he can’t get over the fact he has the privilege to even talk to him. That he gets to touch him, that he _has_ touched him. 

Like this idyllic little world is theirs, made up of them and made _for_ them only. All the calm and harmony. Like the anxiety and the weight of the world is just a grain of sand that blew away in the gentle breeze. 

“What?” Louis asks, coming up beside him where he stands by the barn observing Dusty, the house he’ll soon get to go to sleep in, next to a person he can’t even believe how much he loves.

Harry shrugs, still smiling. “She has no idea she has two dads now.”

“Oh. You’re right.” Louis laughs briefly before he jumps off of Poppy. “Damn lucky kid. Come on over, Curly, and let’s get you down safely.”

August squeezes out the last of summer’s blazing hot sun, and Harry steals a few moments to tan in the garden and to pretend to work on the laptop next to him.

The laptop holds a whole other universe, the story which he has yet to explain to Louis about, what it is he really does on those days. Feels a bit odd, as if he’s just a lazy potato lying around frying in the sun. But Louis never asks, he never prys. Harry only has to say he’s writing, something, anything. He even says maybe he can read it someday when he feels better about it. And he really means it, because it would be nice if Louis knew a little more, if he was only a bigger and bigger part of his life. He’s just not sure where to start, not sure if he’s ready.

Maybe Harry knows more about Louis than Louis knows about him, or maybe Harry knows close to nothing at all in comparison to all there is to find out.

But Louis knows he came from London, certainly knows he’s moved into his old home. Knows he has a friend called Niall, who he always says hi to when he calls. (Busy days at the office and busy days out in fields alike makes for tired evenings, so they don’t do much more than send memes on most days, but Louis makes sure to come over and spam his text conversations with a few emojis when he sees it open, so it’s all good.) He knows his first name (and Harry hates himself sick because it’s only his first, the lie sitting like a cold and everlasting feeling in his chest), and he knows he loves bread and books, that he takes frequent jogs and adores his mum and sister. 

The rest, Harry would rather just forget.

But Louis brings him refreshments and kisses, and nothing really bothers him anymore. Nothing matters, really, when Louis then lays on top of him randomly and they huff out laughter that gets smothered with more kisses; nothing matters but that, right then and there, all the beauty he gets to see, feel, relish in. And all the happiness that zaps through his body and goes into his fingertips, that gets poured out onto the keyboard, finally able to write. 

He found his muse.

The nearby lake is great for cooling off, great for stealing glances too, to be fair, as Louis drops all his clothing to the grass-covered bank, before he goes stepping into the icy cold water and cursing bloody murder. Harry will just smile, smitten over all his quirks and the way that he goes about life. The way the sun hits his skin and Harry’s mesmerized, like a sailor coaxed by a mermaid, always ending up stepping into the water and screaming himself, that it’s way too cold, and oh my god he’s going to die. Then it’s Louis’ time to brightly smile. 

Apples come into season, start to hang heavily from Louis’ tree, beautiful and red so delicious. Harry never wants to eat store-bought ever again, god, how could he? He makes a few too many pies instead, that they happily munch on Louis’ balcony during particularly dazzling sunsets. They dance in the kitchen to playlists of their mixed favourite songs, often loving each other’s picks and discussing favourite artists. They snuggle with Dusty on the sofa, in Louis’ house or Harry’s, watching movies like it doesn’t even matter how shitty the Wi-Fi is.

Sometimes they fare off on Poppy and Willow in their wellies to scavenge for mushrooms in the forest. Louis knows how to make a stew with cream and leek from his garden, and says they also sell very well on the September market to come. Can freeze them too, so they pick everything they see, then tumble home weary but happy and kick off the boots on the steps. They fall asleep holding hands on their own side of the bed. On particularly colder nights, as the weather slowly changes, Louis wraps himself around Harry or vice versa, keeping each other warm and cozy. 

And Harry can’t help but stop and think about how wonderful it all is. Because, he didn’t just act instantly, on painfully obvious attraction and a longing to be touched. He fell in love. Now everything means so much, every little touch, every sound, knowing that Louis feels just the same.

It just means so much his heart aches with how full it is of joy.

When they come home after one evening out, tending for the horses, Louis hits the shower while Harry goes over to his house to do the same. Comfy clothes are the way to go after a day at work, he’s definitely come to realise. There’s no point in dressing up or looking splendid all the time when you just feel comfortable with the other person. So he just washes his hair quickly and dries it off, watches it dry into the usual curls while he slips into a jumper and joggers. 

Louis, of course, looks unforgivably beautiful. Even coming out with sopping wet hair and trainers with a too-large The Who T-shirt. It’s a kind of thing he does and is quite a menace about it too. Harry feels extremely grateful when he gets to pull this celestial human excuse for an angel into his arms. 

Curled up on the sofa moments later, Louis clears his throat.

“So, I’ve been thinking-”

“Is it going to become a habit?” Harry asks, feeling sassy. “Or is it a one-time type of thing?”

Louis looks down at where he lays on his shoulder, aghast. Harry has to laugh. 

“I see who you learn from,” Louis gruffs, chuckling a little. “My own creation is coming back to haunt me. Ouch, I see how it is.”

“Oh, go on then. Say what you wanted to say.”

Louis draws his hand through Harry’s hair, still shower-soft. He curls up closer next to him and relishes in the warmth, like a cat enjoying sunshine. Louis is quite literally like sunshine. Because he’s warm, he’s bright, and brings him happiness even on his worst days. It’s the damn best metaphor he ever came up with, that’s how true it happens to be. And he might have just used it in his book, so as soon as Louis gets to read it, he’ll find out just about half of all that the thing he thinks of him. How he’s brave, and beautiful. How he’s the most at home he’s ever felt, especially in a place so far from home.

Louis seems to hesitate, which is uncharacteristic; he also never knew of someone with such a quick tongue before. “I’ve been just, you know.”

“Thinking?”

“Yeah.” Louis sighs. “That whole thing. Don’t know how people keep it up, if I’m honest. It’s quite a lot of work.”

“And what was your conclusion, after all this heavy brain-work?”

Louis wets his lips, halts for another moment. “Harry, dear”, he starts tentatively. ”Would you maybe think-- I mean. Would you honour me, and let me call you my boyfriend?”

Harry’s heart bursts with affection, or maybe it’s the surprise. He jerks his head up to stare at Louis’ face. There’s not even a moment to hesitate. He couldn’t if someone tied him down. “Of course, you dickhead.”

It feels like a huge sigh of relief. Louis laughs, grabs his face softly and kisses him. The sunshine metaphor becomes all the more evident with how much warmth it creates within Harry. Like he’s never been so happy before, like he’ll just continue to be happy as long as he’s with him.

It’s a celebration for all that they are and all that they’ll be. 

“Dear, you’re staring.”

“Sorry. Caught me off guard. You were cute for five seconds there.”

“Really?” Harry says, discontented. “Aw, I could have sworn it was _at least_ six.”

“Alright, alright,” Louis chuckles, “I can compromise. If. If you admit for the rest of the time, you kind of looked like an absolute fool.”

Harry is currently balancing (very bravely) on slippery, muddy grounds in squeaky wellies and tipping heavy amounts of food from a bucket into a feeding box, all while Ava the cow watches him with great suspicion. If she was a human she might be raising an eyebrow, that’s how much judgement Harry feels right about now, chewing slowly on a straw of hay. 

If this is constructive criticism, Harry doesn’t want it.

“Okay, _sir_ , I haven’t been doing this since I could just about walk, like some other people here,” Harry huffs through gritted teeth. He’s leaning over the fence and all, very athletic, someone has to give him some credit here. Amelia is sauntering over, the girl who scared him half to death on his very first day in Wayfarer Dale; she owes him one, really, so maybe she’ll root for him in these trying times. 

“What _have_ you been doing?” Louis asks with a chortle behind him. Harry inwardly rolls his eyes and shakes the last of the corn out of the buckets without falling over. “City life treats you nothing of life value?”

“I’ve learned how to catch a bus,” Harry retorts immediately, because it’s all he can think of.

“I’ve learned if I miss a bus, the next will be in three hours. Or the next day.”

Harry blinks at him. “Touché.”

”You love me.”

”I do, actually. So now I win.”

See, Harry’s quite strong, or at least he’d like to think so. He went to the gym quite a few times a week before leaving, or at least, a few times a month if he was particularly lazy and introverted (and would happily switch it out for a jog to Tesco for a protein bar). He’s just strong in different ways. He’s just not very… agile. He has clumsy, flailing limbs and poor coordination. He’s also very not used to using his hands so often. After trying to sling hay into the field with a fork, when Louis is awarded callouses, Harry might have gotten himself a painful blister. Which _sucks_. 

It’s fine, though; his very sensitive skin will get used to it if he just puts his mind to it. His aching muscles will calm down after a warm bath. He has a good teacher, too, so he surely can’t be too far behind on being an expert at this point. 

Fresh air and a good company is all he could have ever asked for. Nothing clears his mind quite as much, breathing in the cool breeze like it heals his body. Airs out all the internal dark spaces, the ones closed off. Lets in light.

He pets Amelia on the side as she devours the surplus he just dropped in. And she lets him. She’s an angel.

When he eventually makes his way back inside, it’s to his own house (supposedly; he basically moved in with Louis at this point) to shower and get changed. Deciding on devoting some time to finishing the book, as good as it will get, he sits down at the kitchen table about an hour later. 

He’s free of distractions until thoughts of his mother’s garden floods his mind as he just finished a paragraph with a particularly summery description. He spends a moment to reminisce about home (again, supposedly) before sending her a text. He thinks he might just introduce her to Louis. If only he could pack him up in a bag and bring him right to her, he’d show him her garden in June while her dogs would skip through the grass, and in turn bring her here on a train and show her everything he’s had the utmost pleasure of experiencing. 

It makes him think of Niall too, how he has yet to discover all the beauty. It’s strange, honestly, that he hasn’t yet. Niall continually blames his job, which is fair, but when Harry ever had an event in the years prior, he would often find his excuses to slink out for at least a lunch or a drink. Even if just for the afterparty. 

Harry dials him, sure he can manage a minute of his day to let him catch up. 

”Well, well, well,” Niall replies sturdily, ”if it isn’t my favourite lovesick bastard.”

”Oh, shut up.” Harry smiles despite himself. ”I hope I’m not becoming a fool that forgets about his friends just because he found somebody. Have I? Please slap me if I have.”

”I’ll forward that slap in an email,” Niall assures him good-naturedly. ”How are you doing, laddy?”

”Good, I was just feeding cows all by myself. You’d be so proud.”

”I can’t even imagine.”

”Hey!”

”Uh no, like _literally_ can’t imagine, because look at me sitting on my arse in an office and staring at another apartment complex outside my window.”

”No, yeah,” Harry agrees. He frowns. ”It had me thinking, actually, well. We’ve been talking about you coming here for a while, and so. What if I buy you a ticket out here?” He chews his lip, hoping, just hoping.” Would that help?”

Niall is silent for a moment. It causes Harry’s heart to sink significantly. 

”I don’t have to beg, do I?” he adds sheepishly. 

”I’m, uh.” Niall sighs heavily. ”I can’t, Harry. I told you how work is, it’s- very hectic.”

”Come on, Niall! I’ll be gone before you catch a break. You know I’m leaving again soon.” Harry twirls a strand of hair nervously between his fingers. He needs a cut soon, and honestly only trusts his barber back in London; like he said though, he’ll be back there soon whether he wants to or not. 

”I know, I know,” Niall sighs. 

”I’ll sort it out with your boss,” Harry ushers. ”You _need_ some time off.”

”I’m just, very busy these next few weeks.”

”Why? What can _possibly_ be so important?”

”I’m.” Niall stalls, seems to try to stop himself, but it’s too late. ”We’re planning the wedding.”

The room shifts. Harry’s stomach lurches. ”Wedding?”

_The wedding._

”I just, I didn’t know what to say,” Niall laughs. He laughs. ”I’m Liam’s best man. I kind of _have_ to.”

Suddenly, Harry feels cold. Suddenly, Harry feels like throwing up. 

He tugs hard on his hair, not even thinking about it. ”I didn’t think you still talked,” he says quietly. 

”I’ve been updating you whenever you asked,” Niall points out. Like that helps. 

”I thought you just like, followed them on social media,” Harry almost whispers. 

He looks down at his hand; trembling. 

”Ah.” Niall clicks his pen. ”No. No, I didn’t want to- I don’t know, man, it just didn’t seem right to end a friendship like that. I didn’t really know what to say about it. Sorry, if that means anything.”

He’s not sure it does. 

“You know... ugh, I don’t know, it’s not my place but. Maybe it’s time you get past this. Because it’s clearly eating you up. You knew your relationship was basically over, not to be harsh, because I know they still fucked up, like majorly by not talking about it and that should be held accountable but, you know.”

Suddenly, he’s back there again. Back in his house. The one he had back in January, before his apartment. 

He’s walking in, eyes sore, head aching, he’s been writing all day in that café he likes with the eclairs and the flowers until the lady came to tell him they’re closing. And he’s kicking off his boots, and he’s getting snow and slush on the floor and he’s thinking Zayn will be annoyed, he should probably wipe that away, at least he can do that. And he’s hanging off his coat when he hears it. 

Faintly down the hall of their house, their house, their house with the large windows and tall, white walls and the paintings Harry never liked but put them up because Zayn really liked them, paintings all down the hall and the noise. That noise. Zayn isn’t alone. Harry follows the noise, those paintings leading the way. 

He follows the noise and he quietly opens the door and he sees a man’s back in their bed, and it’s not his boyfriend’s back, it’s not his boyfriend in their bed. Not only his boyfriend. But he knows that face when he turns around. But he hardly knows him when that face screws up in anger. Or embarrassment. Being caught, that’s kind of embarrassing. 

So he gets it. And he turns back, he walks away, leaves the open door and the sound of bodies and the smell of sex and the purple neon lights above the bed and himself. He ignores the calls after him, he ignores the _Harry, please stop, it’s not what you think, come back here_. He puts his boots back on and grabs his coat and leaves. He doesn’t know where to go. His tears burn his face in the icy cold and his lips turn blue. He doesn’t feel it. 

Now they’re getting married, and Niall forgets to acknowledge how it tore Harry’s life to shreds. 

”Harry?” Niall tries from the other end. It’s so far away. “Bad connection?”

Harry slowly takes his phone down from his ear and presses the red button. Mustering the strength to move he types a text: _Yeah bad connection :( talk later_

He puts his phone on the table and climbs down on the floor. 

He sits there for a while, knees pulled to his chin. He’s not sure for how long. He does breathing exercise after breathing exercise. It turns into trying meditation again. It’s not for him; he was always too stressed to grasp the concept. So he just sits and stares until his chest stops jumping with each heartbeat. Then he gets up, shakily, sighing. 

He goes to bed. 

Harry reimagines the scene a few more times, even in dreams. Continues it sometimes, to walking outside in the cold, feeling lost even in his home neighbourhood. To coming home again to Zayn yelling he was about to call the police when he disappeared like that. Projecting the embarrassment and the anger. Liam, who was his friend, who he met at an event, who Zayn had introduced him to, sitting at his table. Their table. Their kitchen. Their fridge with their magnets and polaroid pictures. This man in his home, unable to speak, to even say he’s sorry. And Harry, just standing in his own hall and being yelled at. As if he’s the one who did something wrong. 

He wakes up by suddenly sitting up in bed. Breathing out long and shakily, he blinks at the darkness. 

”I’ve had enough of this shit,” he whispers into his empty bedroom. 

Because he _is_ doing something wrong. 

All this time, he’s keeping secrets from Louis. He’s keeping secrets like Zayn kept secrets from him, and in a way, now he suddenly understands it. Their relationship was basically over. He knows that, realistically. Zayn just didn’t have the guts to say it. And Harry was hardly ever at home. 

They were over without ever saying it, and Harry was slapped in the face with a betrayal that shook his whole world, that still gives him panic attacks if he thinks about it too hard. 

Is he bringing the same pain and betrayal into Louis’ life? And for what, thinking he’s protecting him? Sounds a lot like someone he used to know. 

What happened doesn’t give him an excuse to be a lying son of a bitch. So, goddamn it all, because now he has to face the music, because he’s becoming what he never wanted to be, and that ends today. 

Well, it’s 4AM, he realises as he unlocks his phone. He should probably wait until it’s a respectable time to get up and function before he tears his heart open. Or whatever.

He also got a sweet goodnight text from Louis, so he’s expecting he’ll soon get a good morning one too. It fills him with determination. He’ll be better. He _has_ to be better. Get better, do better; it’s an end fitting for a start. 

He gets up and swipes his robe around himself, makes himself down to the laptop again. No more panic attacks, he reminds his stupid brain. No more distractions. It ends today. 

Somehow, it makes him manage to pull together the finale of the book. Editing is still left, but it’s plenty of time until November. He stretches back in his chair and feels at least the tiniest bit of accomplishment. God knows it’s been a while. 

He never got a reply from Niall, he realises after a shower and getting dressed. He tries not to think too much about it as he gets on the sofa and decides on watching _Love Actually_ for about the tenth time. Christmas movies are bound to brighten your mood, even as early in the season as the end of August, and Harry already feels his soul lift as he sings along to the songs in the soundtrack he all knows by heart. 

When he makes it over to Louis’ for lunchtime, he can already smell the cooking from outside the front door. 

Louis must have seen him through the window because he opens it before he can try to knock. ”I was just about to call!” he exclaims, holding the door open. ”Come on in.”

”Are you being a housewife?” Harry asks with a big smile as he walks over the threshold and steps out of his shoes. 

”Oi, don’t come here with your gender roles. I’m being an objectively good boyfriend here.” Harry’s heart skips as he’s reminded of the fact. Louis is his, and Harry is Louis’. ”Now hurry up before it gets cold, you dick.”

Louis plays Harry what has turned out to be the ultimate playlist, _their_ ultimate one, containing songs they both love and adore as they dine on homemade bread rolls and a stew Louis has cooked up. Harry helps himself to seconds as they discuss the good and the bad of classical rock, as one should, because any conversation with him is a conversation worth having. Even bickering about the goods and bads of Rolling Stones, it’s worth it, especially when Louis’ nose scrunches up while he light-heartedly disagrees, or when a smile spreads across his face to his crow-feet eyes when Harry talks about the music he loves. Harry just mostly loves _him._

When lunch is over they move to the sofa, happy and content. It’s the preferred spot to be, especially when Louis ends up looking particularly irresistible, delicious, beautiful and—

They become a mess of tangled in limbs, dopey smiles. It just happens like that, sometimes. Harry also ends up in his lap as they kiss. He can’t shake the feeling, still, that Louis is really his. That Louis accepted him as his own. That he’s been lying through his teeth the whole time. 

Even when the courage hits him, Harry has to try a few times before he can think of what exactly he wants to have said. 

”I guess, now that you’re my boyfriend,” Harry says and they both stop to smile in glee at the words; he’s his _boyfriend_. ”It should only be fair you know my name.”

Louis’ face changes immediately, and Harry’s heart plunges. 

So much for hopefulness. 

“Love, you’ve said that already?” Louis husks, confusion around his smile. “The first time we met. You okay?”

“Right.” Harry scratches around his hair. There’s really no way around it now. 

Louis’ smile wavers a bit, but never falters. Just goes from toothy, wide and real to tight-lipped, uncertain. 

That’s quite the beautiful thing about Louis. He never seems to lose hope. 

“Nicks is the singer from Fleetwood Mac, actually.” Harry slides down from off Louis’ lap, lands in the sofa next to him with a sad little bounce upon the cushions. ”That’d be Styles, actually.” He nods a little. ”It’s Harry Styles.”

”Why would you...” It’s only a few seconds of silence, then recognition is immediate on Louis’ face. ”That’s funny, it’s like the— Wait, you don’t happen to…” 

He stops himself, mouth still open. Pauses. 

”Oh.” His eyes drift from Harry’s melancholic face to his bookcase. ”But you _do_.”

Harry takes a shaky breath in and casts his eyes down to the floor. _Yes, I’m a writer_. He doesn’t even need to say it. He knows Louis already figured it out. 

”Oh.” Louis gets up, so abruptly Harry flinches at the suddenness. ”But I- oh, _holy fuck.”_

He scrambles across the floor to his bookcase. It’s like the force of the blow hasn’t hit him yet, as he dodges by burying himself into his collection, trying to connect some dots. 

He finds them almost immediately. Three books with Harry’s name across the spine. That’s three out of five. He’s only missing his short story collection (which wasn’t very good anyway; Harry wouldn’t want to buy it either), and the half-done one on his laptop. So, to be fair, he’s got the whole goddamn series.

”At least now I can sign them,” Harry offers hoarsely, as a joke. It sounds morbid instead. 

Louis looks down at the books, still in a bit of a state. He flicks through them as he shakes his head in disbelief. Harry realises as he looks him over tentatively, that _obviously_ a gay, lonely farmer would spend his free time reading, _well_ , gay adventure fiction, practically. (And the label claimed his target audience was teen girls. How wrong were they, huh.) 

”I can’t believe I never considered it,” Louis whispers, seemingly mostly to himself. ”My _god_. I read each of these things like, two times over at least.”

”That’s a good effort,” Harry says weakly. He knows people buy his books - of course they do, otherwise he wouldn’t have crossed a million pounds in the bank - but to see them like this, held with such care by such gentle hands, such love in the act of skimming the pages, reminiscing… It almost brings tears to his eyes, how much it means to him. Like he actually put something good out into the world. 

Louis closes the book again and looks at the cover, at Harry’s name. It’s _”Undoing the Constellations”_ , the one that got a movie, the second one he got published. Can’t say second one he _wrote_ , what with the hundreds finished and unfinished drafts on his laptop.

But it’s the first of the series, the series he’s still working on. 

”I won’t spoil the ending,” Harry tries to joke again. 

When Louis looks up, Harry can’t read his expression. ”I can’t fucking believe you.”

”Look—” Harry gets up, hands in front of himself like if Louis would start punching him; but words would probably hurt all the more. ”I didn’t keep it a secret on purpose. I just didn’t know what to tell you.”

”Tell me what?” Louis has a look of disbelief on his face, emits a humourless laugh. “I mean, _Jesus_ , Harry. What _else_ did you lie about?”

Harry opens his mouth but feels like a fish on land, gaping aimlessly. Louis looks up sharply, like he takes his silence for something of substance. He probably should, because it’s true. Harry doesn’t know what to say.

He furrows his brow. “You _have_ lied about something?” he questions flatly.

“No,” Harry says immediately, which sounds so obviously fake. _So_ painfully fake. But he _didn’t_ lie, he wants to say. But he knows he has. 

He’s kept things from him, and he’s said he’ll never leave. 

He will. He has to. 

“I mean,” he tries again, chest draining slowly of the warmth once there. ”You know. I’m here to work. That’s all.”

“That’s all”, Louis echoes, and Harry immediately realises it was the wrong way to put it. “Like, we didn’t _mean_ anything?” 

_”What?”_ Harry feels like the air is punched out of his stomach. The look of anger on Louis’ face makes him feel how his body drains of warmth. “No, of course not like that!”

Louis gives him a look that’s nothing short of a death glare. Beckons further explanation. 

Harry laughs dryly. “You know, I’m just here as a piss poor writer, whose inspiration had run dry,” he says, because it’s way too honest. He hates the reality of it all. ”As it usually goes, so, I came out here to sort of, change the scene. You’re supposed to do that sometimes. Although, my recommendations have been like, oh, go write in a café, write on your phone, print it and read it like that. Well, I tried all that, so?” He flops his arms out. Like _so, here I am._

“So, what?” Louis scoffs. “You’re out here as a _joke_ , or something?”

He looks at him, waits for him to reply, but Harry can only gape. When he doesn’t reply, Louis scoffs again, turns around to put the book back roughly into the bookcase.

”Louis, _please_.” Harry reaches his hand out, to calm him, to try to touch. His heart beats hard in his chest, drumming in his ears. ”You’re just drawing random conclusions. None of this is true.”

Louis shakes his head but crosses his arms over his chest like he’s collecting himself at least slightly. ”Well, I wouldn’t want to judge so quickly.” He sinks back into the sofa. ”But this is really what it looks like right now, to me. So I hope you’re good at explaining.”

It doesn’t help though, neither angry Louis, nor beaten down. The guilt about the whole thing just amplifies, the stress of the whole situation. Like he had everything, _everything_ … and now he can end up with nothing. 

He blinks at Louis, at a loss for words for once. ”I’m sorry- I don’t really understand what you’re upset about, but I hear you. I’m listening. And you have to know I didn’t keep it from you on purpose. It’s not like- I mean, it’s not like, I’m not a _different person_ , suddenly.”

Louis keeps looking at him like he should keep explaining. Or that he’s daring him to try. 

”Uh, but you know, now that you know…” Harry scratches around his curls, his mind in a knot, scrambling for ideas how to make it all better again. ”I really wanted to _help_ you this whole time. I really- as a _gift._ And, now. Now that you know, I would like to gift you something, to help you along.”

He nods, sure of himself. 

But Louis’ eyes darken. His voice monotone. ”You want to make a donation?”

”That’s not- _God _, I’m not being _humble_ or something.” He shakes his head vigorously. It’s all coming out wrong and he feels sick, feels like something is pressing down on his chest and he’s seconds away from suffocating. ”I just thought- I don’t need all that I have. You know? I don’t want it. _You_ need it more.”__

__Louis nods stiffly. He scoffs. ”Funny.”_ _

__”I’m not being funny.”_ _

__”Yeah? And I don’t _want_ your money,” Louis seethes, standing up from the sofa so that Harry flinches. ”You wanna live like _common people_ , like the song? A rich person’s experiment?” Louis throws his arms out. ”Am I just some _book research?_ I’m just your gateway into information about the _poor_ or summat?”_ _

__”I didn’t say that,” Harry whispers._ _

__”Maybe not, but it’s what you meant.”_ _

__Harry feels like he can’t breathe. He wants to exit the room, just be rid of this conversation. But he can’t give up and walk out. He should be doing breathing exercises or he might just collapse._ _

__“You’re not even going to be here for long then, are you?” Louis asks, and it’s the last thing Harry wants to answer right now._ _

__It renders him speechless._ _

__Louis easily takes the silence for an answer. Something burns behind his eyes. A feverish hatred, mixed with a _fear_ Harry knows to be there. He didn’t only hurt his pride. He wounded him. He betrayed his trust. _ _

__”So, you’re just going to leave? Fuck off and be gone?” Tears line Louis’ celestial eyes. ”Disappear like everyone else?”_ _

__“No.” It’s all Harry can say. Just no. Stop. Please, let this be over, let the feeling of his heart being stabbed cease. “No, I don’t-”_ _

__”You made me fall in love with you, just to _leave?”__ _

__That shuts Harry up. Because, he’s been called every bad name under the sun; he’s been thrown homophobic slurs and death threats all the same, seemingly for just being in a magazine; he’s been made out to be the bad guy in the split from his boyfriend that cheated on him and betrayed him and broke his heart and stomped on it._ _

__But nothing, _nothing_ has hurt as bad as this, right now. Nothing has hurt as bad as Louis’ eyes welling up because Harry has hurt him. _ _

__Harry’s heart physically feels like it shatters. He tries to keep his voice steady, tries to understand what to do to make it right again. How can Louis think this? How can he make those ugly, hurtful thoughts leave when he doesn’t even trust his words? ”That’s-”_ _

__”Just go, Harry.” Louis blinks away tears. ”It’s enough.”_ _

__Harry tries to reach out, to touch. Find who was once there._ _

__”No. Don’t.” Louis holds his hand up and turns his head away. ”Please. You’ve done enough here.”_ _

__He curls his hand up and brings it back to his body, as if burnt. His voice trembles, words shattering. ”I never meant to hurt you.”_ _

__”Then why are you?” Louis asks flatly to the wall, gleaming streaks of tears down his beautiful face. ”I don’t want your_ charity_. I don’t want your, fucking, _pity-kisses_ , your pity-fucks, any of it. None of your pity.” Louis puts a hand quickly over his mouth to silence a sob. “So just leave. You know you want to.”

With tears burning in his eyes, Harry turns away, leaves the house, and doesn’t look back. 

For two days, Harry doesn’t know where to go. Louis’ house had started to feel like a home more than his own, and as he enters the white building down the road where he supposedly does live, it feels haunted with memories instead of just being the empty solitude he once loathed. 

For two days, he walks back and forth, pacing like he had done, in London when anxiety clawed at him. Scared for the future, terrified of the past. That time, he had lost the one he loved to his friend, walked straight out and just continued walking, numb and cold. Trying to understand how someone could hurt you like that. 

This time, he’s lost the one he loves all his goddamn self. 

He might just dig a path in the floor with the way he paces. 

On the third day, he remembers a thing that could coax the numbness out of him. Not with substance or self hatred. No, but he could replace the dread with anticipation; like going down a rollercoaster instead of falling down a dark hole. 

He knows Louis’ approximate time table, so he wakes up early for it to beat him to it. It’s very early. He might have hardly slept at all. 

Then he sneaks off to the stable. 

The gravel is loud, seemingly crisp, when no other sound is around. Only crickets are awake this time of dawn, no birds quite yet but soon, soon their song will fill the world with perfect sonnets. For now though, he walks as good as alone whilst colours sweep in with the lightness over the sky. 

Willow greets him with a friendly face, big dark eyes that forgive so much, that exude so much love it almost makes him burst out crying right then. Instead he strokes her down her blaze and kisses her softer-than-velvet nose, whispering good morning. He dresses her with the usual saddle and mounts her with growing skill and confidence, so that they slowly can trot out onto the cold gravel outside. 

A sheer layer of white fog is wrapping the ground up to sleep for another few hours of the early morning, like a protective duvet. A few stray birds have gotten fooled by the slowly rising light that it would already be time to rise, fooled by the everlasting light of summertime. Song in joy of a new day, or in lamentation? He does not know. 

It’s like a painting or a scene from a movie, he thinks, breathing in the cool air that chills his lungs. They make their way up one of the rolling hills, all the way to the top, and Harry gazes serenely over the stone fences. His eyes wander towards the yellow villa, where Louis is still asleep - he hopes - and promptly flickers them to watch down upon his own white one down the road. Because, it’s yellow like his spirit, like how he was always golden and glowing; and maybe he was just too bright for him. Maybe Harry brought along too much darkness. Enough to darken the sun itself.

He tries not to let it affect him, seeing where he’s currently not welcome; he studies luscious grass instead, field upon field. Far, far away, he sees sheep that look like clouds in the distance. Trees that reach for the pale morning sky, which is set with strokes of cerise, of bright cerulean. Studies brushes and shrubs that give berries.

He counts the things he sees. Then he counts the things he feels, that he hears and smells. Takes breaths with seven second durations and waits for three beats in between.

Finally, the calm. Finally, the anticipation. 

Soon, the feeling of being a bird, flying off, free. 

”Ready, girl?”

Willow huffs a breath, and Harry pats her down her side, warm under his palm. He sits back up in the saddle to maybe start thinking about his own breathing (which is probably currently unhealthily uneven, thank you kindly for asking) and adjusts the blue headscarf keeping his hair in check. (It’s cute. So sue him.)

”Ready,” he answers himself, and then they’re off.


	5. nothing without you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is [picture inspo](https://artxghoul.tumblr.com/tagged/mdiltinspo) if you're feeling emotional about the english countryside because I know I always am

On the same day, Harry comes to Louis’ house.

He hasn’t seen him since his whole universe broke down. Hasn’t tried to search him out. If he ever found Willow missing in the stable, he’s sure he knew who took her and approximately where to. He didn’t ask, Harry didn’t tell. 

Now, he finds himself knocking on his door and waiting for a reply.

He’s prepared to wait for a while, unsure if Louis is even home. But when he hears steps softly pawing up to the door his heart jumps in his chest. It’s an unsure mix of anticipation and anxiety.

“You can come in,” comes Louis’ raspy voice, unused and weak, door just open to a slit so that Harry can’t see him, “but I don’t suppose you should expect I’ll talk too much.”

“Thank you,” Harry says instantly as Louis turns around and leaves into the kitchen, Harry following the sound of his footsteps intently as he enters and steps out of his shoes by the door. He enters the house slowly, as if he didn’t use to live here. Like it’s not a place for him anymore.

Louis is breathtakingly beautiful. Even exhausted, drained and sad, he stands by the counter with a large teacup in both his hands, T-shirt exposing his inked, sun-tanned arms, joggers sitting just perfectly on his hips. He still raises his eyebrow expectantly and Harry wonders if he could tell he kind of stared a little. Just a little. 

He’s still him. Still Louis. And still so beautiful. 

Harry swallows dryly as he steps carefully into the room, careful not to go too far, to take up too much space.

“Listen,” Harry starts, which is a good start, if he only knew how to continue. “I want you to know, you have every right to be angry. I don’t want you to forgive me yet. Really. I just- I want you to really _understand_ everything, before you say anything.”

“I doubt we have anything left to say”, Louis says into his teacup. “I looked up your name. Sorry about the integrity breach there. Or well, you know you’re kind of all over the news, now that I check.”

Harry hasn’t checked the news himself for about the past month or so. Niall hadn’t said anything about it, so he’s had to assume it was all going along as normal. “Anything I should know about?”

“I suppose it’s all old news for you.” He raises his cup to blow off steam. “Like, oh, the author who left his life and came to the country to write, where has he gone? Exclusive news, buy this subscription. I didn’t. But I found other shit like, ex boyfriend to be married. Cheating scandal. Learn about the new mystery man’s favourite shoe brand.” He shrugs a shoulder. “Sorry if that sounded harsh. Maybe I know more than you do yourself, now. Gossip magazines have a habit of giving you more than you asked for.”

Louis’ eyes look tired, like a spark is missing. Harry tries to find words he doesn’t have. He’s unprepared.

“The comment about being the new Jennifer versus Angelina situation was quite funny, though,” he adds dryly. “Strange to make light of it like that. I don’t think the bloke looks much of a Brad Pitt, myself. Seems like quite a dickhead.”

Harry could agree. Instead he breathes in and out. In and out. Seven seconds in, hold. Hold. Seven seconds out, hold.

“I accept what you’ve been doing, you know”, Louis says instead, looking up at the window. “Whatever your life has been. It’s none of my business. I didn’t tell you anything about me instantly, and I don’t expect you should have told me everything about what’s been going on with you either.” He shifts, considers it. “I’ve read your books, obviously, so I’m thankful you wrote them. That you still write. That’s all a beautiful thing, you know. I think it’s amazing. I just.”

He shakes his head. Harry waits for the blow, like he’s waiting to get slapped in the face.

”You said you wouldn’t leave”, Louis continues quietly, like he still can’t believe it. Like he’s been repeating it to himself to try and make sense of it all. “I’ve been alone for so long, and now-”

Harry remembers being called an angel, sent for him. Currently, he feels nothing more than a speck of dirt on the ground. 

He’s about to let Louis finish, prove it, but he shakes his head and turns around sharply instead. Like he can’t even utter the words. 

Harry feels like he’s the one who’s come to make all leaves and plants wither, brought the autumnal cold. Like he poisoned the crops, brought death and decay. Him and Louis, they cannot be. Because he killed them. 

“Louis,” Harry breathes, and it’s all his mind can give him. He tries again. “I love you. _So_ much.”

Louis breathes out heavily, shakily. He turns his head a little, so Harry can see his profile. “I’ve been struggling to believe that.”

“I know. I understand.” His heart starts beating hard, making him nauseated. His words come out thick and he tries hard not to choke on them, because this is what he has to say. “I completely understand why. I’ve been so terrible to you, _so_ terrible. I really see that and I think about it constantly and it’s really fucking hard to admit that because it _hurts_ so much to know it.” 

Harry blinks away tears and tries to compose himself. He tries to be grateful Louis is even still listening. 

“I didn’t keep these things from you to hurt you,” he continues thickly. ”Please understand that. That’s the most important thing I want to say, I think, if you’re going to take anything from this conversation. Well, also, you’re the most important thing to me, overall. You’re the most important and you mean so much to me.”

Louis hides behind his cup, lets Harry continue. He has to.

“I think, if we both are so hurt by this,” Harry says, trying, slow, “it must mean, we still really love each other. Um, at least I know that I love you. I think we love each other so much, it hurts so bad that we might be separated.” 

Harry keeps his eyes on Louis’ profile, his eyelashes fanning out over chiseled cheekbokes. And how he longs to trace his cheek again and kiss him and to cherish him. How he longs to when he could be in his arms. 

“I hope you can accept me, for what I’ve been. I know it’s a lot. If you want to know, you can ask anything. If you want to. Back then, you should know, I was so in love with writing, I forgot about real life. I kinda of uh, returned down to Earth to realise the one I, you know, trusted the most, had found someone else.” It hurts to even admit out loud. Still, the wound is so raw, but he wants Louis to understand. “But, to be quite honest... I’ve been struggling to work ever since I came here. All I can think about is, basically, you.”

Is it the hint of a smile? It makes his heart flutter for a moment, studying how Louis takes a tentative sip from his cup. It gives him some strength to go on. 

“I understand if you don’t trust me. But I swear I never lied to you. I swear I never meant to hurt you. And I’m so, _so_ sorry, Louis, and I can’t _live_ with myself knowing you’re in pain. And now, I just.” 

He doesn’t add the thing he hopes for, doesn’t want to put on anything that feels like an obligation: _I just, really stupidly, hope for us to just enjoy this time while we still have it._

_I just want to be with you while I still can._

“Why can’t you stay?” Louis says finally, weakly, hands trembling as he sets his cup down on the counter.

“I’m trying hard to.” Harry shakes his head and closes his eyes, the anxiety still overbearing. “I have a contract. You can’t break these.” Louis stares at his cup, and Harry just wants to wrap his arms around him. Hold his fragile frame and never let go. “I couldn’t make this up. I mean- I have no reason to. I want _nothing_ more than to be with you.” He feels the tears sting his eyes, voice becoming thick. “You’re all I want in the world, but I have a deadline just two months from now. A fucking _deadline_ and I can’t get out of it.”

His heart still beats hard, fast. The world sways, the walls feel constricting. God, wait, is he about to have a panic attack? He feels so stuck in his situation. He just wants to get out, he wants a life free of the obligation and to just be with who he loves.

Louis’ voice is far away. “So you have to leave in November?”

Harry just nods. Clenches his fists and tries to breathe.

At first he jumps when he feels warmth around him. Then he wraps his arms around Louis, he instantly buries his face into his hair, and just sobs. It just wrecks out of him as he surrounds himself with his warmth, safety and comfort. That he’s there again.

“Then we’ll make it work until November,” Louis murmurs, and Harry just nods around the tears.

But still, so far, it’s September. It’s only September.

And September brings frosty night winds and mist on the fields. Harry breathing in the cold air and holding a warm hand in his, feels Louis’ heartbeat under his thumb when he strokes his wrist. 

The days are still long, and they’re still working out. Working each other out too, sometimes, like when they play board games from Louis’ attic and figure out what kind of player the other person is. Louis, as it turns out, also knows about a dozen card games, and maybe it’s a shocker to no one Harry is the best at keeping his poker face yet loses because he doesn’t understand the strategy. Louis beats him at Jenga, though, and Harry pouts until Louis comes to kiss it better, so it all works out for everyone involved. 

They pick blackberries from shrubs, alternating between dropping them into their wicker baskets and popping them into their mouths. Dry moss crunches under their feet as they search around the forest. Louis encourages Harry not to pick every single one though, as some wild animals like to eat them too, so they should be saved. It makes Harry’s heart grow fonder yet, reminded each time just how good Louis is, to everyone, to everything. He tugs him close by the sleeve of his dark blue trucker jacket and kisses him, reminding him of it himself. Only the yellowing leaves rustle as the kiss deepens, continues. 

Harry feels fairly ridiculous in his brown faux fur jacket when they set up a table on the September market, on one of the coldest days of the month so far. Louis looks nothing short of adorable in turn, donning a maroon beanie with curls and fringe poking out, black peacoat with wool lining around the collar and fingerless black gloves. His knuckles are wind-bitten and his nails gnawed short when he hands back the change and gives the customer a bag of mushrooms, a jar of jam, or a container of butter, and Harry wants to kiss his hands and warm them between his thighs to make sure they don’t hurt. 

They sell everything they have. Harry is the one to strike up conversation and suggest things like _oh, do you enjoy blackberries, madam? This jam is really very good, I eat it nearly every morning, works for both porridge and toast in my opinion. Louis likes the applesauce better but, between us, what does he know, right?_

They celebrate by dancing in the kitchen, Harry’s forehead on Louis’ shoulder, or Louis’ face buried in Harry’s unruly hair. The Kooks, Coldplay, The Fray. 

_”Baby I’m yours,”_ the Arctic Monkeys sing, _”and I’ll be yours until the stars fall from the sky… Yours, until the rivers all run dry…”_

It’s what it feels like. It feels like his song has been sung. In the gentle and calm, here in their world, there’s nothing but love. 

”Did you ever dress up for Halloween?”

”Yes, Harry. My childhood was not actually in the 1800’s no matter how much you like to say I’m old.”

”I never say that,” Harry reasons, ”just, kinda of, imply it. Not often. Only sometimes.”

Louis smiles at him. He can’t ever really get mad. ”And now you’re implying we should dress ourselves up, for Halloween?”

”Well, yeah!”

”Despite the fact we’re alone?”

”You can be a cowboy.”

Louis looks scandalised, leaning back into the sofa. ”Okay? And how many times do I have to tell you-”

”A gay cowboy on a lonely prerie,” Harry muses, putting on a really bad Southern drawl. ”Down in Minnesota.”

”I may have failed my geography A-levels but I’m pretty sure Minnesota is not _down_ from where _we_ are.”

”Oh, live a little.”

He climbs into Louis’ lap when he begins to protest again, drowns his words out with a kiss. It always works. Harry’s pretty sure they’ll never have another argument again, at least not an unhealthy or toxic kind. Maybe over food choices or movie picks or whether Louis should be a sexy gay cowboy or not, but nothing major, because just a kiss always reminds them that this will always be so much better. The reminder of warmth and presence and mutual affection. 

The fact he has to exist. He has to be in his life. That he’s so happy every day that he still is. 

Louis’ hands caress up his body, his hoodie catching on a nimble finger. It brushes Harry’s skin, still with a little golden tan from the seemingly endless summer, a shy question of whether it’s invited to dive under the cloth completely. 

”Cold,” Harry whines and grabs Louis’ hand from behind it back. He kisses it gently and blows hot air on it. ”I fix.”

”Ah yes, body heat instead of a regular radiator,” Louis smirks. ”Just like in my 1800’s childhood.”

Harry rolls his eyes at him. He kisses his knuckles. ”So. Cowboy?”

”We could be ghosts, just throw a sheet over ourselves. In fact—” Louis reaches beside himself and tosses a blanket over their heads. ”I already have it all set. Here you go, my love.”

Darkness falls as they get caught underneath the blanket. ”Our magical kingdom,” Harry whispers. 

”Why are you whispering?” Louis whispers back. 

”We can’t disturb the locals.”

”Oh my god.” Louis retrieves his hand from his to smother them both over his face. ”I can’t with you.” He drags them painstakingly slow down his face as Harry just grins wider. ”Okay, so who lives here?”

”Well, elves. That’s obvious.”

”Granted.”

”Fairies. Some trolls. They’re evil, but probably just misunderstood.”

”Are you plotting a new book right now?”

Harry bites his lip. It’s a new thing, realising he can talk about that stuff with Louis. ”Maybe I’ll write one for kids.”

”You should, with that imagination of yours.” Louis seems to sense the change of tone and grabs Harry’s face gently to pull him back into the kiss. ”And I’m so lucky.”

”Are you sure?”

”Yes.” Louis nods slowly, foreheads together. ”I love you, you wonderful, creative, storytelling dickhead.”

Harry laughs and smushes his hand over his mouth. They wrestle until Louis ends up on top of him, a knee coming up softly between his legs, and the laughter drowns out between kisses and soft sighs. 

In the week leading up to November 15th, they only leave bed to feed the animals. They put on jackets and windbreaker trousers over their pyjamas and ride in Louis’ truck, completing chores at double speed now that they work together and know what to do. Then they’re back under the covers, throwing the outdoor clothes off to hide under the duvet. Skin touching skin. Warmth. A heartbeat. 

Harry shows Louis stupid Youtube videos or movies on his phone with Louis’ shitty wi-fi. They pause to get food and eat it in the sofa, sometimes Harry picks out a book to skim through from Louis’ impressive collection. Back to bed, like healing. Like this is the last time they’ll ever see each other. 

Is this the last time they’ll ever see each other? 

Powdery snow falls eventually and water cups freeze overnight; they warm their feet with their body heat. They wear blankets like they’re capes inside and set up the sparking fireplace, roast marshmallows indoors. Anything to distract from the pain and just focus on what’s here, right now. 

The day before the 15th they just hold each other quietly until someone starts crying. 

Harry has been haphazardly packing, not sure what to say. He barely unpacked in the first place so it’s not hard work. But emptying the house feels like he’s living out a curse, just allowing it to happen. It feels like he’s draining his heart. He swears he cries himself dry that night. 

Before he walks out the door the next morning, he can’t even look Louis in the eyes. It will break him beyond repair. He knows it’s goodbye. They silently agree. 

Then a part of himself is ripped in two as he closes the door behind himself and cries the whole way to the train station. He cries more listening to _Comforting Sounds_ by Mew in his headphones. He cries so much he shakes when Louis already texts him: _’I miss you so fucking much’_.

The apartment doesn’t feel like it’s his own anymore. It’s lacking most of his stuff, for one, still in boxes around him like a warzone. It’s missing the person he devoted his whole heart to. 

When he opens his bedside drawer, the book he’d been reading and forgot to pack is still there. He sits on the bed and opens it to smell the pages. He leaves it there and wanders aimlessly through the light, silent rooms. The bathroom he’ll fill with all his favourite products again, the shower with the full-body spray. The kitchen he can fill with fresh, organic produce. 

A house is what you make of it. The energies you fill it with. 

It’s about the people who inhabit it. 

He looks through his CD and LP collection without having anything he wants to find. Fingers lingering on Pink Floyd, Arctic Monkeys, everything they used to listen to. He lets the apartment stay silent. 

He sends a text to Louis that he’s arrived home and safe and good morning. He’ll be happy to know how much he slept in, like an attempt at recovering even just a little bit. But the second time this year, he’s struck with the feeling he made the worst decision of his life.

This time it wasn’t his choice. Or was it?

When he starts unpacking, there’s a soft knock on the door. He carefully sets down a collection of plates he was about to put into the cabinet and walks to the door with a furrowed brow. It’s so unexpected now. That other people even exist at all. 

Niall is on the other end of the peephole, and when Harry opens the door, he looks bashful. He also has a bottle of wine in his hands. A good kind. 

”Is it too late to say sorry?” Niall says sheepishly. 

Harry instantly feels like crying. Niall must be able to tell.

”Welcome back,” he husks and hands him the bottle which Harry accepts with trembling hands. He’s too stunned to say anything at all. ”I’d say _home_ but. I guess. Home is a person, not a place, right?”

That does it. Harry is going to stand here and bawl his eyes out and he won’t even feel bad about it. 

”Oh, I’m sorry,” Niall rushes to say. He steps inside the apartment and closes the door behind himself while Harry wipes at his face, laughing despite it, because he’s being so ridiculous. ”Shit, I’m not very good at this. Uh. Do you want to marinate with your feelings for a while? Should I try again later?”

Harry sniffles through his smile, shaking his head so that his curls tumble down from behind his ears. ”No. No.” He raises the bottle. ”Thank you. Really. This is so nice.”

”Well I felt like I’d been kind of terrible, so. You don’t have to forgive that I’ve been a shit friend.” Niall nods gently. ”I just wanted to do something.”

Harry nods silently in return, tears still rolling. He gestures for Niall to follow and walks him into the kitchen to put the bottle on the table. 

”You can help me find the glasses,” Harry says, motioning vaguely in the direction of his boxes. 

Niall laughs. ”I guess I can at least do that.”

Thing is, Harry really missed his friend. Drinking wine with him at the table is just the last kick the room needed to get a spark of light back. Despite the blank walls it’s as if it gets coloured, filled with the scent of the sweet wine and the warmth that fills their bodies. Harry feels it tingle to his fingertips as he finishes his glass throughout the conversation. 

They go through the events. Niall tells him earnestly how it had been conscious to make the wedding happen while he was away, which is so honest Harry feels only grateful he can sit here and tell him about it. The idea was that it would help, that he wouldn’t have to be hurt. Harry kind of felt as if it was a plan to consciously hurt him. He’s glad at least someone can talk sense into his anxieties. 

When Harry gets to the point of talking about Wayfarer Dale, it just makes him cry all over again. 

”Wait, Harry. Mate.” Niall looks at him in disbelief. ”You left your boyfriend, and you think you won’t ever see him again?”

”I’m rotten,” Harry says immediately, like it’s on the tip of his tongue. ”I know I’m not good for him. God, I just. Hurt him so much.”

Niall tilts his head, considering it. ”From what I can tell, you hurt him by leaving,” he says. ”He seemed very happy to have you the times we spoke. Like, if Louis ever spoke well of his home, he spoke at least equally well or twice as lovingly of you. I swear.”

Last time Louis texted him had been that morning, a picture of the cows as he’d had to go and thaw their water again. The city is just filled with grey slush while Louis’ home is a proper winter wonderland. It’s hard to accept that could possibly be on the same level when Harry feels as fucked up as this. 

Harry sighs, heart heavy and anxious. He looks out the window and the spread of the city. ”It’s because of my contract, anyway. I’m stuck with that. And he has his whole life there, he can’t pack up and leave.”

Niall seems to understand that better. You sell your soul when you sign a contract. Common knowledge. He meddled with devils, he pays the price. No matter how high. 

Niall looks at him with a concerned expression. ”So. Busy in the nearest future?”

Harry nods. ”The book is coming out soon.”

”Well, congratulations!”

He smiles weakly. ”It’s been a journey.”

”Mentally and physically.”

”You could say that.” 

He’s glad it’s going to be over soon, like crossing the finish line. Except it’s not over yet. It’s far from over. And somehow, right now, it’s even worse than it was before. 

”Promotion hell is the next stop,” Harry adds bitterly, finger circling the rim of the emptied wine glass. ”Wish me luck, I guess.”

Niall’s eyes flicker to his hand. ”I genuinely do.” 

He refills his glass. 

A few weeks later, Harry realises it’s been so long since he got ready for an event; he barely knows how to dress. He also has never gone alone, always with a boyfriend by his side with crazy-coloured hair that changed for each and every party to bring all the attention to himself instead, working as a perfect shield to hide behind. 

Now Harry’s buttoning himself into a sheer, black shirt all on his own, playing faint music from the bedroom speakers. He doesn’t want to, but that’s just the thing. He has to. At some point it has to get easier, right? Or at least it’s what he can tell himself when he feels himself start to tremble.

He gets in a taxi and snaps a picture for Louis. Somehow they’ve avoided heavy conversations, texts continuing as if Harry didn’t leave, simple good mornings and good nights. Nothing about coming over, obviously. Granted. 

Harry somehow still wishes to see it, though. As if he’d be just a taxi ride away and could go to him with some takeaway, if they lived in the same city. Harry’s not sure if Louis even still considers him his boyfriend, but his heart still flutters when Louis texts him back _”wow, gorgeous”_. 

He wishes he was the boyfriend by his side. Beautiful, stoic. Harsh lines and gentle curves. That he could make fun of his hair in red carpet interviews and Louis would be there to tickle him into mercy. He wishes he was there in the taxi and holding his hand for comfort and kissing him before he leaves for good luck. 

He exits without either, straightening out his collar and entering the building with a long exhale. At some point it has to get easier. 

Right?

Harry wakes up disoriented, one morning in late January. The night before had been an interview. At least he knows that much. 

He rubs the soles of his hands roughly into his eyes and grumbles at nothing. He doesn’t reach for his phone on the bedside table. Instead he rolls over, considers sleeping some more... decides to give up and nurse his headache instead. That’s a win. 

He does light stretching on the familiar, soft carpet, curling his toes into it. Decides to paint his nails. The smell of it fills his room, so familiar, then he pads languidly into the kitchen, snatching his robe from a peg on the way to dress himself over his T-shirt and boxers. 

He makes himself a cup of coffee, swallows a painkiller and sighs. He pours the cereal he likes. In the bowl he likes. Sitting in the chair he likes in the window he likes. All to realise, he _doesn’t fucking like it_ anymore. Nothing compares now. Like everything is artificial, everything is just a fake against what was once real, what he once held. 

Rubbing his temple, he taps the iPad to life, he nearly chokes on the previously mentioned cereal. 

_’Harry Styles steps back from the limelight: The best-selling author behind hit movie Undoing The Constellations says he’ll be making no more books after the release of the upcoming release.’_

Well, fuck. 

It’s not like he didn’t _say_ it. He just didn’t expect it to make any _frontpages._

As it turns out, it made _a lot_ of frontpages. 

His work mail is connected to the device but the notifications are off, and he doesn’t dare open it. He doesn’t dare go back to the bedroom and check his phone. He barely dares to breathe. 

Because he definitely didn’t run this by with Jeff before blurting it out. 

As it turns out, though, Harry seems to have discovered a secret here. He found out he had the choice all along. It wasn't something inevitable, it wasn't written in the stars; or maybe he was just _undoing the constellations_ , ironically, like his book and movie title. He had the means to shape his own path, change the destiny as it was written. This was it. This was him taking control. 

And he feels utterly out of control when he starts shaking instead, dropping the spoon and burying his face in his hands. 

It’s a few terrifying phone calls later Harry flops himself back onto his bed. He has to restrain the wants and needs that beg for him to curl up into a cocoon and never see the light of day ever again. It will be fine. Because this is a good thing. 

Harry just struggles with change, he’s realised. Even when it will change his entire life for the positive. 

Oh dear god, he’s so afraid. 

With him declaring his end, the demand for him heightened even _morecrying_ just seeing her there.

“Hello, sweetcheeks,” he chirps and she raises her tail in anticipation. “I missed you, darling.”

He pets her down her grey back and she purrs and stretches into his touch. The softness and gentleness of her thick fur calms him down significantly, still jittery from a long and unstable drive over icy roads he slid over while contemplating the nearest future. Not like, in terms of potentially _crashing._ Just, like, where he’ll end up now. If he’ll still be welcome. 

But to the question if this feels like the right choice to do, the answer is yes. And it will be yes a million more times more. 

“Is your dad home?” he asks Dusty in a whisper before he stands up and looks down at the house.

It’s still yellow, containing the sunshine that lives inside. The garden is covered in a light layer of snow still, something that had melted away back home. Harry walks slowly up the path, shoveled free of snow by thorough hands. At least he’s wearing proper shoes for the weather, he thinks, reminiscing ruining his Oxfords on the second day here, climbing into a field of cows to find a very captivating man feeding them.

He knocks and withdraws his hand, stuffing it into his pocket promptly. To say he’s scared is definitely an underestimation. He bounces a bit on the spot, cold escaping down his clothes even though he made his best effort to dress properly for once. Like he really belongs here, because he knows he does. 

When Louis opens his door he freezes, eyes wild. It’s a firework made up of feelings that go off within Harry in that moment. 

He doesn’t know why he’s so shocked he still looks the same; as if time would have moved on without him, as if things would have changed just to spite his absence. 

But he’s still there, in joggers and a Black Sabbath T-shirt. Hair a mess that works out oh so well with the fringe across his face ending in a perfect curl. A week’s worth of scruff and tired eyes that light up like the sun comes out on a cloudy day. He’s still beautiful. He’s still Louis. 

”I’ve got a flat tyre,” Harry lies, in light of the first time they ever met, but with his voice trembling from nerves and happiness and he’s already moving forward with a grin. ”Wanna help me fix it?”

Louis just throws his arms around him, and buries his face in his hair as Harry mimicks it. Breathes him in, holds him tighter. They hug and laugh and Harry thinks his heart might just beat out of his chest. Might just set up camp right here because home is where the heart is and Louis is definitely his home. This is exactly how it should have always been.

”I can’t fucking believe you’re here,” Louis murmurs into his hair, squeezing his parka like he really can’t understand it’s really his reality. ”I can’t believe you. Oh my god.”

”I missed you so much,” Harry adds breathlessly and Louis just nods. 

”I missed you. I _missed_ you and I missed you.”

They sway slightly on the spot, like a slow dance. ”I won’t let go this time,” Harry tells him as the tears start falling over his smiling face. 

”You better not, dickhead,” Louis retorts and laughs.

He pulls away minutes later, many minutes later, to just hold his face in his. He pulls him in for a kiss. They laugh into it, teary eyes, cold exchanging for warmth.

Louis holds his face again and just looks at him, smiles so big. “You’re here. You’re real.” He shakes his head like he still can’t believe it, wiping tears from Harry’s eyes with his thumb “God. Come inside. Please.”

Harry doesn’t need convincing. He kicks the snow off his boots and steps inside into the warmth. Now they'll finally start to heal.

The house becomes their shared home for real when they start unpacking Harry’s variety of books to fit next to Louis’ in the bookcase. When he rearranges his wardrobe for Harry to fit his clothes in it as well, when they build a second one for all the strange event and gala clothes he loves to keep as a memory. When they start sharing cooking duties and who will go out to tend for the animals. When they start to fall asleep in the same bed every night.

They adopt chickens, too. Revamps the house already being the stable Louis once had to give up. He accepts Harry’s money spending, even when reckless, like giving them a fucking chandelier. A tiny one. Because it’s incredible. They name all ten of them - chunky Cochins, because they’re so polite and friendly - and feel like proud, beaming parents when they lay the first egg. 

The cows calve in early spring and the parental feels become _severe_ when Harry’s favourite lady Amelia gets a little boy. He promptly names him Angelou: _”Because, it’s close enough to Amelia and he’s an angel and you know who else is an angel? You, Lou.”_ And then Louis has to commence a tickle fight as payback for how much it makes him smile like a fool. 

Niall gets his rustic wedding dream, eventually. Harry’s family comes, as well as some friends of Louis’, and they give their vows in the garden. His mum finally gets to see it, her dogs and Niall’s pup running wild among flowers and crops, animals in far away fields. Harry couldn’t have asked for anything else. Not _anyone_ else. Media also still mentions them, but it’s scarce, only as if it’s in passing. The wedding does bring some attention, though, like _”Harry Styles marries: find out about the mystery man of his dreams on page 7.”_ And at least they can laugh about that now. Besides, Twitter fandom really likes Louis, so that’s the only blessing Harry really cares for. He prints the fanart made of them and puts on their fridge, next to random fruit magnets and grocery lists and polaroids of them.

They fall asleep calmly each night, knowing the other one won’t disappear this time. Harry never felt so grateful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was in the making in like 2017 and abandoned and picked back up again this summer when I started to obsessively write because I was so inspired by the warmth and nature and basically the pain of being separated from my gf because of 2020 life circumstances. Writing is therapeutic!!! 2021 is a fresh start for healing. WE GONNA HEAL BINCH.
> 
> I've basically been involved with farm animals my whole life but sometimes I still feel like such a harry so I hope you enjoyed louis trying to stupidly explain things <3 and I hope I used all the correct horse terminology because I haven't ridden horses in like 15 years so in this case I was very grateful for harry's clueless pov
> 
> As I said in the beginning, here is [picture inspo](https://artxghoul.tumblr.com/tagged/mdiltinspo) if you're feeling emotional about the english countryside & here is [a playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3BEBhtrQP3HctCOhK2DiA6) & thank you VERY MUCH for reading


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